What’s the most unhinged/blatantly untrue thing you’ve been told by a health visitor?

[claudiawinklemansfringetrimmer]

Inspired by the health visitor who confidently told me yesterday that “Pom bears have more saturated fat than a Big Mac” and the ones on a birth preparation course who stated “breast fed babies are 70% more intelligent” and “they didn’t have formula in dinosaur times!” (The latter is technically true I suppose…)

Also had some of the most frustrating conversations about the size of my son.

’He’s very big’

’Yes. He was 11lb at birth so he’s going to be big’

’Yes we’ll need to keep an eye on him’

’Whar does that mean’

’We’ll need to make sure he’s not too big as he’s on the 99th centile’

’Isn’t he supposed to be as he was born on that centile?’

’Yes but we’ll need to keep an eye’

’Is there something I should look out for?’

’No - let’s just keep an eye’

I honestly think it should be completely overhauled and a more targeted service rather than spouting the bollocks they so often do.

‘Baby food, like Ella’s kitchen, it’s posion for babies’

me- ‘don’t you think that’s a bit strong?’

her- ‘poison’.

——
‘do make sure you put baby down to sleep in your room at 7pm’

’but won’t I have to then sit next to him? It’s easier if he sleeps downstairs’

’no, you must leave him it is very important for your husband and you to have an evening’

‘but isn’t that against safe sleep guidance before 6months?’

’having an evening is more important’

err

Asked me in front of my partner if I was being abused by him (standard question i think, but pointless/dangerous to ask in front someone else…).
Also told me to let me son cry it out, and to not babywear as I would spoil him.
Luckily she only came once.

But the thing is there are risks with co-sleeping like there are risks with everything. But some people are like dogs with bones and just get hold of one thing. There are risks with tiny babies in Moses baskets too as you can easily tip them up.
Maybe the HV had been involved in a horrific case where a baby had died and it shadowed their judgement?

I was fully aware of the risk of co-sleeping and as it was my second child - and luckily had good advice with pfb in different location. TBH I would have prefered not to co-sleep - but had velcro babies.

I think it was more the attitude there was no attempt at discussion or informing me of risks or help to get past co-sleeping it was do what I say or else I'll refer to SS as a threat.

They also constantly informed me that they didn't approve of the age gap we had - near 2 years - the were already born so not sure what they wanted me to do at that point - and there were no concerns about their development.

I also got lots of push that I should put them in childcare and go back to work as well - decisions that I felt were DH and mine to make later on - not with very young baby and a huge move just behind us.

It felt like a lot of judgement and no actual support.

You clearly have never seen Mr Benn

The drop in place where you could get your baby weight (run by health visitors) had a couple of older kids with chickenpox running around. Asked the health visitor why this was ok, shouldn’t 4/5 month old babies kept away from chickenpox?
No, apparently exposure is good as they ate going to catch it anyway. I left.
My kids got vaccinated against chickenpox- both have severe eczema.,

When I voiced concerns that BF DS was showing symptoms of a food intolerance and I was wondering whether to cut out dairy from my diet to see if that would help, she told me that nothing in my diet would pass into my breastmilk. I am fairly sure she wouldn’t be saying that if I told her I was drinking a bottle of wine a night 😂

I know someone who would say the same! Still BFing 6 month old first baby, no periods, no pregnancy symptoms, didn’t twig for ages. By the time she thought it possible and had a scan, was already over 14 weeks.

I’m so sorry you had such an awful experience. That first HV sounds so insensitive & amateur! Good for you for complaining.

This is both hilarious and horrifying. Using a well known example of how neglect impacts on behaviour and brain development to instead promote it as a positive. It’s quite incredible she got through her train so fundamentally misunderstanding neuroscience 🤦🏻‍♀️

There is some truth in it for certain bowel conditions but the other risks of smoking outweigh the benefits.
ibdclinic.ca/resources/smoking-and-ulcerative-colitis/

I got a lot of poor care and advice from midwives and HV which caused endless problems for me and my first baby. In fact some were bullies.
Fortunately by my second I was confident to do my own thing and ignore some useless almost dangerous advice.

You mean The Flintstones isn't a documentary? Gutted.

I have a friend who smokes to ease his asthma. He knows that smoking kills, but he also knows his asthma can be debilitating. He claims (and when I googled there seemed to be some limited evidence to back it up) that gunging up his lungs with cigarette smoke actually reduces their sensitivity to things which trigger asthma attacks. He claims that whilst it might not do him long term good the short term reduction in asthma symptoms is worth it because they are so bad.

As a Speech and Language Therapist I understand your view. I also think that reading a few of these threads should be part of the training of any hcp. I have been misquoted a few times during my career when what I said was taken completely out of context. You need time to be able to ensure your message has been understood - this is something HVs often don’t have.

The other day a professional gave a suggestion to my daughter about feeding my grandson. I know the professional and have huge respect for her opinion. I realized that she had made a wrong assumption about DD. If I had not been there to reframe the advice DD might still be scratching her head.

It is so easy to say something that sounds more sensible in your head than out.

I had one who told me that my 3 month old exclusively breastfed baby was overweight and asked what else I was feeding him. I said nothing, he’s exclusively breastfed. She rolled her eyes and said she knows I’m lying because breastfed babies aren’t overweight!
she then told me his weight had gone from the 25th centile to the 91st.
until I pointed out that his birth weight was actually on the 75th not 25th…

different HV then told me when he was 2 that he was overweight and needed to go to weight management. She gave me a document all about portion sizes. I explained he eats less than on the document. She again said I was lying and he must be having loads of milk daily. I said no actually because he’s allergic to milk! (which we found out at 6 months)

Anyway I declined the weight management. He is now a very skinny 12 year old and I never took his younger brother to the HV when I could help it

I was told "your son will always be small and will probably be shortest in his class" after being born at just over 5lb.
I was really upset; both my partner and I are tall.
Six years later he was tallest in class, 13 years later he's still one of the tallest in his year and on track to be over 6ft as an adult.

Well not crazy advice I guess but my HV tried to help me breastfeed as we were really struggling. By help I mean when he opened his mouth to cry she forcefully pushed him on me... Suffice to say it did work. I pumped for a while then bottle fed and that worked fine. I was so upset about but now I see he is thriving and I did my best. HV - terrible !!. Also.. there is nothing wrong everything is healing fine. Or I had a prolapse which was diagnosed after multiple doctors visits.

That's why most professionals have sufficient intellect to develop a filter. A great deal of good healthcare/support/guidance arises from high levels of communication and the ability to explain sometimes complex concepts to a variety of audiences.

Communication is the key to optimal practice. I don't see why it's so difficult for supposedly highly intelligent post graduate professionals to hone to be honest.

My health visitor recommended that. I tried and it didn’t work. I was devastated that I saw no way out other than changing to formula. DD thrived, but baby sister 18 months later was fully BF. I still wonder if the right advice would have resulted in two BF babies.

Like down into the nail!

You know when you've just had your first born and you are very green and someone tells you something and you don't have any experience and it seems plausible?

Then we looked at his miniscule fingernails and the massive scissors and this crazy woman and said no thanks.

I was just going to post the same!
my bat shit HV asked me if she do something a little unusual with DS at 10 weeks because he cried constantly ( reflux ) . He then proceded to do what I can only describe as an exorcism walking round chanting whilst carrying DS.
I took him back pronto and phoned the office to tell them .

I once had one who started giving me the talk about contraception. I knew it was on my notes not to bother.

I said I had no fallopian tubes. She actually sat there with her jaw hanging open. Obviously had never heard of IVF/ICSI.

I am very glad I was for flying over the birth for all my grandchildren and our presence exuding no nonsense made the visits very short, all advice was to the point and all that

Sadly not. She was deadly serious