Daughter fell and Social services now involved

[any009]

please help I’m so worried. My daughter fell off sofa last night while I turned my back for two seconds. She was perfectly fine after 2 minutes but I panicked about her going to sleep so I called 111 just to get some advice. They said everything sounds okay and she is aloud to go sleep but someone would ring me within two hours.

someone called within 30 mins to ask me to bring her in at 3:30am for a face to face appointment. I explained it’s not really necessary for me to wake her up in middle of the night and let her wait for ages in hospital when she’s fine. I asked if it’s ok for me to just take her to go they said it’s up to me.

so I woke up in the morning to call gp and while I was on the phone social services called me. I answered and she asked why I hadn’t taken her to hospital when it was advised but I said she was perfectly fine I just panicked and rang 111 for some advice. She said she is deeply concerned and I have to take her to doctors asap to make sure she’s okay I said I’m in the middle of that so that’s fine.

20 mins later social services are knocking at my door asking to assess my daughter. They checked her body for bruises marks or anything but she had nothing and was perfectly fine like I told them. I then went to the gp and the doctor ALSO said she is perfectly fine and he will put this in the notes.

social services called back to asked what doctor said I told them he said she is well and fine and they said okay will do another visit soon.

I’m so scared and worried my daughter is going to get taken off me I’ve been crying all day it’s all I can think about. Has anyone got any advice? Will they take this further?

Previous posts show baby to be 5 months old.

I think all babies under six months are generally classed as non-mobile for safeguarding concerns, so they absolutely did the right thing insisting on seeing her and being concerned by your opposition.

My oldest (now 5) has been to a&e a million times (no minor injuries of out of hours here) and we've never had social services. 9 times out of 10 it's been for an infection though rather than bump/fall. He's exceptionally unlucky. I've had some raised eyebrows at nursery for black eyes etc when he started running instead of walking at 9 months. They soon saw it themselves.

They just want to make sure. Obviously you panicked, we all do. Try not to take it personally and instead see it as a good thing for those poor children in the news. And your dd is fine, that's all that matters. Don't worry for a minute about them taking her.

5 months old, you really should have followed advice and taken her. A 3/4 year old who can talk to you and tell others what happened and if they are in any pain is different.

It’s done now, she’s seen a GP who has said all is well. you sought medical attention, I really wouldn’t worry any more. Honestly, it will all be okay, they will speak to the GP and they will tell them they were seen and they have no concerns.

If you call 111, it’s best to toe the line. You know now that things can escalate.

For what it’s worth, one of my babies rolled off a sofa at a similar age, when I was right next to them. I took them immediately to get checked, even though they seemed fine as you never know if a small injury occurred that would get picked up at a later date and cause suspicion. Always best to get them checked.

5 months old ?!?! You didnt know she was fine when she was asleep,
You should of taken her and im not surprised you got a visit from them

Every child admitted to a&e flags a health visitor or social service involvement. Also as they had advised you to attend a&e that will have been flagged. They will literally assess what happened then more than likely close the case. I had a similar experience when my dd2 had to attend a&e at around 7 months. The health visitor was notified and they phoned me to have a chat. It panicked me but she said it was purely procedure and it always happens if it's an accidental type injury. I guess it's better to be on the safe side rather than missing children who are being harmed at home 😊

The 111 service was excellent. Calling 999 in my scenario was not necessary.
I was lucky in that the first responders were here in 5 minutes, the ambulance was here quicker as their previous callout wasn’t there ie no ppl at the address they had gone to.

All of this!!!

I'm not sure I know anyone who's baby hasn't fallen off the sofa or bed at some point.

Best thing is to apologise for not going and assure them that you know you need to follow medical advice in future. That should hopefully get them off your back.

Either way, they won't take your baby away. No-one's baby gets taken away after a single accident not dealt with as they'd like. I'm so sorry you're having to deal with this stress though.

You had a positive experience with 111, so are advising other posters NOT to use the 111 service unless it's a medical emergency - in which case they should ignore all actual advice to use the 999 service?

Did you mistype, because that doesn't make any rational sense.

No, I didn’t mistype. But unless you are willing to follow through with the advice given, don’t call 111.
I’d not use 111 for advice with young children unless you are willing to take them to A&E as that is the only advice they can give.

I don't understand this comment, you called 111, emergency responders arrived and you had an emergency admission. Why would this make you avoid them as it appears their triage worked and they did what they needed to do.

No, I didn’t mistype. But unless you are willing to follow through with the advice given, don’t call 111.
I’d not use 111 for advice with young children unless you are willing to take them to A&E as that is the only advice they can give.

That is not true @Mum2jenny. I have had to call 111 for my kids quite a bit due to different health issues. They also make out of hours GP appointments and if they deem that not necessary advise to see GP or pharmacist in working hours.

Ppl I know have called 111 for young children and all have been advised to go to A&E. Maybe just this area though. But I wouldn’t do it for little ones

Your op doesn’t say your child is a baby.

i imagine there are cases of abuse where a parent has felt guilty afterwards and worried that they’d gone too far so want advice (as in ringing 111) but on being told to take the child to be seen, don’t, as they know they’ll be found out (fresh or older bruises/fractures etc).

I think this was bloody efficient work by SS and they were very on the ball despite the opposite normally being reported as the case.

Your DD will not be taken off you OP. If SS contact you for follow up, admit you made a mistake not heeding the advice you were given and it won’t happen again.

It certainly could be construed as neglectful not to take your child for medical assessment if advised by a medical professional to do so.

Thank you all so much you have helped so much! I do realise it was really stupid of me not to take her to a and e I was just reading medical advice online and it said if baby doesn’t have certain symptoms they should just be closely monitored at home which I did and didn’t sleep to make sure she was okay. But I will be making sure this never happens again. The doctor was very happy with her today no lumps on her head and arms and legs moving just fine. Her fall wasn’t very high as our sofa is very low and we have a thick rug she fell on just got really worried at the start

No, it's fine, it's totally standard.

My oldest when aged 4 had a seizure and fell down the stairs early in the morning while staying over at my mums when I was out with DH for my birthday. I got a phone call from social services a day or two later and I remember that I said 'I expected I might get a call from you' and they immediately said 'Why do you say that?' so I just told them I knew when young children had an accident at a family home they tend to check these things out. I think they just wanted to establish that we weren't regularly leaving our kids in an unsafe house with elderly parents who couldn't cope or something. They asked, for example, why they didn't have a stairgate up and I explained they did have one but oldest was too old to need one, and our youngest wasn't mobile yet. They said they would follow up, but never did in the end. It's just a standard safety check to ensure an accident isn't a red flag.

DD was admitted to hospital when she was 18 months. Ambulance crew and hospital said accident was a new one on all of them. It was a genuine accident, but the fact Ambulance crew had access to our home (relevant as they needed to go upstairs where accident had happened) and DD, it was obvious there was nothing to hide.

Don't be afraid to ask for help again, OP, bit obviously follow up on support and help in the future.

I agree with everyone else that this is just SS doing what they are supposed to be doing, but I also sympathise with how horrible it is for you. There's still such a stigma around even fleeting contact with SS and a perception that they are removing kids on flimsy pretexts all over the place. As a result it's terrifying and humiliating when they turn their spotlight onto your family. It's a shame we can't do more to normalise this sort of routine checking and reduce the stigma, because if it saves vulnerable children from harm (which it does) we should all be behind that.

I had the opposite problem. Ds1 was 8 months old and nosedived off the changing table into the laundry basket. I panicked and phoned 111 who told me to go to a and e. Went to a and e and got a telling off for taking in a perfectly well baby.

OP, the threshold of taking children into care is really high. You will probably get a couple of visits at most.

Sounds like some great safeguarding in place.

Why do you think they would take your daughter away?

No way would you get told off for taking in a baby that fell from a height.

If your child has an accident it’s pretty normal for SS to come and check - don’t worry about it.

The fact you didn’t take the advice to get her checked immediately (that was daft BTW) will be an extra flag, so you might get an extra visit, but nothing more than that. Relax.

My son fell down the stairs at 14 months, I wasn't sure if he had hit his head so called 999.

Long story short sw called me a few days later to ask the same questions I was asked by every medical professional.

Both myself and my husband are social workers ourselves....

Just trying to reassure you that it is protocol and they are just investigating.