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…)

We had a baby brezza for our daughter, our HV for her hated it, it was amazing! On one visit she saw it working, she said she couldn’t promote it but she would have loved one when she had her little ones.

Just goes to show how many awful HV and MIL there are then.

Mumsnet is a website. We all have our own minds. It's not Mumsnets mind.

The health visitor after our first was born , and learning we were both vegetarian, " oh, do you eat a lot of quiche then?"...🤣

Inspired by the health visitor who confidently told me yesterday that “Pom bears have more saturated fat than a Big Mac

Not a health visitor, but a Weight Watchers group leader once said 'watch how many cans of diet sodas you have. They may say 'only one calorie per can' but if you have a lot, those calories can really add up.'

Now I understand all the reasons why diet sodas with artificial sweeteners are not ideal compared to say water or green tea, but they are still a better option that regular fizzy drinks full of sugar, if weight loss is your main concern and you simply must have coke or whatever instead of water. Even if they can trick your metabolism into behaving as if it was receiving sugar, and stalling weight loss, they aren't going to be worse for WL than full sugar versions.

But to argue that a drink containing one calorie cannot be consumed in quantity because 'the calories can really add up' is just ludicrous.

If there was one calorie in a can of low calorie/low sugar soft drink, you'd have to drink about 12 litres (36 cans) of it before you'd consumed the calories of roughly half an apple. You'd die of overhydration before it affected your weight loss.

All of my hv were fine. Some better than others as in any job. One did give me misinformation, she thought my dc had unclear speech because he drank from a sippy cup when he had his 2 year review. Thankfully I stood my ground (i wanted a speech referal) as it sounded structural to me and it ended up being an undiagnosed cleft palate.

I could bitch about her and say she was awful but I would imagine 9/10 times it is mostly due to dc using sippy cups/dummies/bottles etc whilst talking. She didnt agree with me but she did refer us to speech therapy which is what I needed to get the ball rolling.

'Autism is caused by food additives' - ds1 turned out to be severely autistic so he must have gotten into a very large food additive factory when I wasn't looking.

I was told I was just unlucky that I’d got a naughty child - he was later diagnosed with Autism. This was in the 90’s

I had a visit from one who had a coffee and a blether then made to leave, without having clapped eyes on the baby asleep upstairs. Pointless people.

Yes but HVs are cheap and cheerful compared to paediatricians - I think they were only intended to advise new mums (who were assumed to be moronic) on the absolute basics.

Totally agree - I used to work in a HV team and of course, some were better than others but overall they were just a team of normal, caring women who worked their arses off to make sure babies and women were safe and healthy.

Those who "can't see the point" of them - be glad you live such relatively simple lives as the chaotic, violent, poor situations of others would show you EXACTLY the point of them and then you might be glad on those family's behalf that they exist.

Mine was a lovely lady, we saw her often at first as my prem babies had to be weight weekly for a while and she came to us so I didn’t have to get my twins down to baby clinic weekly. She had absolutely no clue about premature babies and did give me some questionable advice (to give my 4m old twins, 2m old corrected, toast etc.) but I liked her.

We are about to have the two year check, I phoned after being sent the asq to fill in and said I didn’t want to fill it in as my twins are diagnosed CP and developmental delay, are already under all necessary services and filling out a form of all the things they can’t do seemed a fruitless and depressing exercise. They told me to fill it in anyway, so that was a bit shit.

@Ramblethroughthebrambles absolutely spot on. Certainly about research methods. I would add more training in ethics might help too

Yes, that is the correct advice...

"From the age of 6 months, children should begin eating safe and adequate complementary foods while continuing to breastfeed for up to two years of age or beyond."

https://www.who.int/health-topics/breastfeeding#tab=tab_2

She might be a nice woman but giving advice about early weaning prem babies isn’t by any stretch of imagination correct and at its worst potentially harmful to babies health. That’s what gets me, the simplicity of the mistakes that they make, it isn’t hard to learn no food before 6months except in very specific medical circumstances and no leaving babies under 6 months to sleep alone etc…

My friend was told to give her 2 week old baby pure orange juice for constipation. VERY Scary

That I didn’t “look the sort” to breastfeed.

I am afraid I cannot agree with your comment that your dd's got a super fab service because they appeared mc and were based in Surrey. I believe at least two of the Surrey Hospitals have been declared as inadequate and have received damning reports for their maternity services. HV's are also sub-contracted I believe to the Local Authority. Children's Services where I live in Surrey has been under special measures and is regarded as a failing service.

No HV should carry out visits at 8am and professionally, they should neither expect nor accept meals from clients. If they accepted offers of food from you they were being very unprofessional and should have told you they couldn't and shouldn't accept them and there was no need.

FYI when my babies were born we were living in an area significantly more upmarket and expensive than leafy Surrey - SW London. It did not mean we got better services because the good HV's were sent there. In fact one or two of the HCP's were quite cutting about how we lived and not in a good way. I think their personal missions were to suppprt underprivileged families and families like us just pissed them off.

I couldn't agree more but their services need to be better targeted. I did not need their visits or the misinformation that was peddled. All mine had to do was say "Hi, I'm Mary, here's the paperwork, here are my details, I'm here if you need me". Instead she turned up late, was a form filling jobsworth who couldn't give two shits that I'd been unwell, had poor advice from the community midwives and the maternity ward as mastitis was developing for the first time, bleated the bf mantra in a shocking way whilst not having the expertise to help.

In her keenness to do her paperwork she asked me if I was on benefits and might need help to ensure I was getting everything I was entitled to. She was sitting in a house worth at least half a mill in 1996 and to this day I don't know if she was taking the piss or just plain stupid.

"very bright children tend not to sleep much" said to me when I was all but broken by nearly two years of managing alone with around 3 hours of sleep a night. Mine was intelligent and talked very early which i guess anyone would if they are awake for most of the time! However they were no more or less intellgent than their peers or cousins. No help offered to me .

My baby had been readmitted seriously ill with dehydration after my milk failed to come in the first week. HV on first visit told me off for using formula and that it would destroy BFing. When I pointed out what had happened to us, she ignored it, then refused to provide any advice on sterilising bottles or making up formula as she “couldn’t support formula use”. Then signposted me to the local BFing group for advice. They knew nothing about formula either.

On second visit, after GP had diagnosed severe PND, the HV stated that they didn’t provide support for PND. So that was that.

I can’t see what the point of them is? If they can’t support infant feeding or mums with PND what are they meant to be for?

When I was a first time mum and had my ds following a long labour that resulted in an emergency c-section, I had pnd and was struggling, my health visitor asked how I was doing, I said that I was finding it difficult and she then said “did you have your son as an accessory” both my Dh and I looked at each other absolutely dumbfounded by what she had said, I should of put a complaint in about her but I was too shocked by what she said.

DS1 was born 4 months prematurely. An HV told me not to correct his age.

Until you're 10cm dilated you are not in labour.
10cm is fully dilated.
Yes, everyone is the same - 10 cm
How big is the baby's head? - 10 cm
What all of them, exactly 10cm? - Yes, 10cm or smaller.

Honestly you can tell they are lying to you and that there is absolutely nothing you can do about it.

in fairness to them I did have a good one later on when there was some really difficult stuff going on in my life and she rightly recocognised that I had unreated PND (my child was about 4 at the time) and had been battling for years with symptoms. I still remember her with gratitude, she was very helpful and supportive.

Mine was okay but could have been a bit more sensitive…. First visit unannounced and said ‘oh I know you only moved here yesterday’ then came in house and asked if it was always so messy (there were boxes as I had moved in 24 hours before…..) and I had my nightie on at 10.30 am because I was knackered from moving, had been feeding through the night and when my dc went to sleep at 6.30 I thought I would also get a few more hours in. She also stared at my knockers through my nightie and said ‘don’t worry - all women’s breasts get very saggy after having a baby. They’ll not improve now.’. Didn’t really ask her opinion nor did I want to discuss my tits.

She did however back me up when gp said I was an over anxious mum when my Dc was unwell at four months old. I sat in reception refusing to move until I got a second opinion as the gp had only glanced at him. Ended up being blue lighted to hospital with bad bronchiolitis and being put on a ventilator. So I overlooked the clumsy personality as she did help when I needed it.