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…)

I can't believe that this things were actually said or done to a mother in this country. My daughters are in Surrey and all health people have been very logical, civilised or understanding. Surely a HV which is basically just a nurse cannot tell you how to live your home life, marital life, financial life and all that. That is called bullying and such employees should be fired immediately or transferred to practices where the families are struggling with income, relationships etc so at least some strong hand is needed

At six weeks I'd had some light spotting, she told me my period couldn't return that soon because I was breastfeeding but some spotting was normal. My period returned properly the following day and I ended up going to the hospital because I assumed my episiotomy had ruptured.

😮

That it would be healthy for me to eat chocolate biscuits and ice cream a lot to keep up my milk supply. I was overweight and my milk production was off the chart (I was pumping and freezing because I had so much).

seriously? I mean it could be a joke.

Not unhinged necessarily, but I was asked by one health visitor during every single visit whether anyone takes drugs at home.

There was absolutely no evidence of drug taking in our house.

I get that she has to ask the question, but it was super annoying that she asked me every single time she came around.

I chose to bottle feed and had it written in my medical notes. Not a health visitor, but one of the staff on the maternity ward walked off when I asked for a bottle and literally never came back.

She'd held up the baby and asked me 'left or right'. I'd had a pretty bad labour and wasn't quite with it and asked her what she meant. She repeated left or right, and when I got it and replied I'm bottle feeding she stuck the baby back down, walked out and I never saw her again
She didn't get busy and ask someone else to being me a bottle, she literally ignored me and never came back!

What is the point of the question? What are the chances of someone with a newborn admitting to drug use in the house?

Some of ours looked very young but excellent beautiful girls, civilised, helpful, informative, logical. This here is like sorry, what?

Mine told me my c section scary was wonky. I hadn't asked!

I also had the comfiest seat in the bay window so had pulled one curtain across a bit for some privacy from people at the door while feeding. She leaned over me to pull it back and told me I'd give my baby jaundice.

She then weighed the baby with old fashioned scales which put him dangerously under his birth weight. She wanted to get us admitted to hospital so we raced to to the weighing clinic (only open twice a week for an hour) to find her scales were really out and ds had put on weight, not lost any. We didn't have to go to hospital.

Another one looked at the breast pump and said 'see how little milk you're making. No wonder your baby is feeding constantly. He's hungry.' She was wrong. I could never get much with a pump but the baby was much more efficient! I really doubted myself but luckily had the sense of self to ignore.

Then at the one year check she asked when was his last feed. I looked at my phone and said about 20 mins ago. She looked appalled and said most women stop when the baby is six months and she thought that's what I was going to say. She also said the WHO guidelines were only for developing nations. I went on to feed for another 18 months!

I know there must be some good ones but I never met a single one.

That blood in a 3 day old baby’s diaper/urine was normal as he was “clearing up from being inside”.. I later found out that it’s a sign of dehydration, which makes sense as my milk took 3 days to come and I had no idea that baby was sucking on empty breasts for 3 days.. Also makes sense because he was crying uncontrollably for 3 days and only settling when I gave him drops of formula with a syringe (in fear to introduce a bottle). Thanks goodness I had enough of the crying and actually gave him a bottle of formula at day 4.. and combi fed since. Thinking back I hate myself for unknowingly starving my baby. I also hate that I wasn’t told that the milk takes a while to come, that babies only need drops of milk (so untrue, especially as my son was 75th centile and a big baby) and 3 days of non stop crying left me with severe PNA and sleep deprivation.

I think it was more a shock as we'd moved from a very middle class area with bf support and helpful HV to one were they clearly thought all mothers could be talked down to.

TBH my experince with MW with next pg in same area was even worse - we did reluctantly in end complain and while complaint upheld by managemnet we subsquently received much worse treatment - so bad it put me and baby at risk.

My MW and immediate supervior mentioned training and working in nearby area before that one - that's area had a maternity inquiry going back decades and found huge atitude problems leading to unnessary deaths.

I would not mind if ours accepted the tea :) . I offer everyone not only tea but a whole breakfast also. Always think the girls must be up so early, commute and knock at the door just before 8 and therefore hungry.

I remember one of mine wanting to talk about how to wrap Xmas presents and another wanting diet tips. They were more interested in those topics than my baby or me.

Almost everyone I know who has interacted with Health Visitors found them fairly useless and full of misinformation.

Basically, as it should be. Invading people's homes with nonsense should be prosecuted and the bad apples fired. This is life and death matter, to meddle into people's private lives, not the game of authority as some people in the system want to make is sound. No one is god above the family.

as a foreign grandma whose daughter had excellent service from Surrey - may be we get the best people due to the leafy status attracting professionals, not sure, we offered smiling welcome, tea, breakfast to everyone who came and the visits were to the point.

My mother was a visiting nurse and midwife up the mountains when there was nothing so organised in my country as here. She saved mothers and babies from death. They got her gifts, food, etc. This is why I adore health professionals. But ye aren't gods and threatening people with SS for absolutely no reason, is honestly, abhorrent

Nothing thankfully, but she did clearly look down her nose at my beautiful, glorious perfect prep machine.

HV is a challenging role. They're expected to have knowledge spanning paediatrics, child psychology, adult mental health, nutrition... Yet they only need a 2:2 at undergrad level and a bare pass at postgrad. That's not a very high academic standard. I wonder if that needs reviewing, or the breadth & complexity of the role. I've known some HVs who are brilliant, but some seem unable to interpret scientific knowledge. Their grounding in research methods could be stronger so they all come away with a clearer idea of what can and can't be claimed from research studies with muddy findings. Partial knowledge can be a dangerous thing and is probably what has fuelled a lot of the advice recounted on this thread.

My HV was actually quite reasonable about mine. She said thousands are in use and no one has got sick yet so clearly they are fine. I was like thank the lord you're sensible with that at least.

I agree with the full fat coke one. My ds was 11 months and the coke hydrated him better than anything else and he kept it down. The GP said it saved a hospital stay.

I spent ages asking ChatGPT for this information, the answers were just not quite what I wanted. You seem to know more than AI. Thank you

Same. I was told that if I did not breastfeed my babies to TWO YEARS OLD I would seriously compromise their health. I now have two strapping 6 foot + solid, healthy, extremely sporty, sons at university who both self-weaned at 6 months.

I was speaking to my HV when son was about 12 days old and saying my milk supply was dwindling (emergency section, big blood loss and on antibiotics for infection which had a known side effect of reducing milk supply!!!!) and that I was thinking about swapping to bottles….they looked me dead in the eye and said ‘for your mental health I think you should continue’……for my mental health I am choosing to actually feed my baby!

I wasn't going to stop using mine regardless. Easily the best thing I ever bought!

They didn't have breast fed or ANY humans around in " dinosaur times" Jeeesh !!