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…)

What are Wright ins?

No they don't come often and you don't have to see a health visitor.

I have a friend who struggled with constipation, so she used to have a cigarette beforehand and it seemed to be the only thing that worked!

Flat full sugar coke or lemonade is recommended for D & V as it replaces the lost electrolytes. Don't know about whether or not it's suitable for a nine month old, but it certainly isn't bizarre advice.

When DD was recovering from a gastric illness her consultant advised her to drink flat, full fat Coke.

Nothing, my health visitors have been excellent. Very supportive and helpful.

If you keep feeding him Ella’s kitchen pouches he’ll grow up to be a fussy eater.

My son is the least fussy eater I know. He eats just about anything and if you take him to the farm shop and let him choose he’ll come out with a pigeon or a pheasant.

His sister on the other hand we had to do baby led weaning with because she wouldn’t let us feed her. She’s the fussiest person I know.

Listening to the health visitor I’d have expected them to be the other way round.

I got to really like my health visitor, but we didn’t get off to a good start. We lived in a flat at the time and it was mid afternoon, me & dd were sleeping. I woke up to banging on the door. I opened it and explained we were sleeping. She boomed ‘It’s day 10 dear and I have to come in’ and shoved past me…think Claire Raynor 😄
She proceeded to lecture me about all sorts for what seemed like ages… ‘and don’t put the baby bouncer on the table’. I just stared at her and she said she was sorry and she knew I probably wouldn’t but the things she sees, she had to say anyway.
She retired when DD was about 2, I’d got quite fond of her, she was old school, knew her stuff and I still talk about her to this day.

Her replacement was useless.

There did used to be a scheme for a 4 year course which lead to SRN and HV certificate but that was a long time ago. Qualifying at 22 years if they started at18 years I don't know if such courses still exist.

Certainly NOT for a nine month old baby.

my newborn was ‘using me’ for attention, when I queried him needing to be fed so often.
she advised I stop feeding him so often.
My milk then started to dry up and we had to switch to formula.
i really regret taking that advice.

My HV told me I should be waking my sleeping baby to keep feds on a regular schedule. No, even this first time Mum just ignored that one. I was shattered and needed the down time.

With my older kids (late nineties/early noughties) we went to the clinic for weigh in/checks/ vaccinations. With my youngest it was all home visits and weighing had stopped. (About 12 years ago)

Stressed first time mum. My son was 4 weeks old and hadn't started smiling. Mentioned to HV who said 'perhaps he just hasn't got much to smile about' I think she was joking....but 18 years later this still lives rent free in my head. I went home in tears thinking my baby was depressed and hated his life 🙈🙈

I have a big gap of 13 years between my kids and I was 42 when my second was born. HV told me that just because I was older, I didn’t know it all because I wasn’t an “experienced mummy”. I said I have a 13 year old daughter. She just muttered something and I said thank you for coming but we’re fine.

On a positive note, when my son had his 2 year check, the HV was SEN trained. I had been seeing signs of “something” since he was a baby but wasn’t sure how to articulate it without sounding stupid. So we went to the appointment and she spotted his behaviour straight away and made a referral. Thanks to her he was diagnosed with autism at 3.5 years old and I will forever be grateful for that early diagnosis and the support she gave me throughout the whole process.

Perhaps just scroll on. What a weird thing to post.

They'll say to do that after river swimming too, to kill any potential bacteria that may have been swallowed.

It's not combined anymore but theoretically you could go from qualifying as a nurse immediately onto a schpn (health visiting) course with minimal experience. Unfortunately due to funding hv hold an enormous caseload and a lot of their time is safeguarding with most of the "nice" bits; seeing babies for the universal offer being undertaken by nursery nurses and hcas who don't necessarily have the knowledge to offer evidence based advice

I had ‘we must aim for all babies to be under the 50th centile for both weight and length’

Mine was 99 for both (husband was 6’6’’)
I tried to explain how it works, but it quickly became clear that was a waste of time…

My second baby was very long, with a large head, and pretty weighty at birth. The HV wanted to refer him for hydrocephalus but my very experienced community midwife had already measured him, commented he had a big head and said it wasn't a problem. Later HV decided that he was overweight for his age - he was just an enormous baby. He's been 6"3" since he was 13.

This is just unhelpful. Yes, you may have been a great HV, but there are so many terrible ones out there. Mine told me she was referring me as my Dad died suddenly 3 weeks before my daughter was born - she didn’t, and I had 3 terrible years before my PND was diagnosed. A large number of these people (the 5 that I met for sure) are absolute jobsworths who don’t actually care.

Best I heard (told to mum in front of me in queue to get babies weighed) "everyone knows that sons are shorter than their dads". I sat there with my mind boggling, thinking but then the human race would gradually disappear over the generations!?

On my 4th dc my phn ( public health nurse ireland) arrived on my second day home from hospital. It was her first day back from a career break she wanted to check my would but had never seen a negative pressure dressing. It was in my notes from the hospital but she hadn't read them. When she came another day to remove the dressing and the staples she told me it was her first time removing staples I was a nervous wreck about the staples already as I just had dissolving stitches the previous 3 times. I had had a terrible birth and I know it was my 4th but I really needed reassurance and she didn't give it. She went off sick and I never seen her again

I was 22 when I qualified as HV in 1981.
I started training for a diploma in ophthalmic nursing at age 17. Completion of this meant I could do a shortened RN course (which included a large element of obstetrics) I did 6 months as a qualified nurse in paeds and then went on to train as HV, a year full time at university/placements. I qualified and became employed as HV a month before my 23rd birthday.

I had a job on my hands trying to convince our health visitor to refer my then six month old son to a dietician (on the advice of an A&E doctor after his first reaction) because he didn't "look like the kind of baby who would have an allergy". 🙄

Food allergy is now thought to develop through transcutaneous sensitisation though, most especially if the skin barrier is impaired (eg eczema).

For babies with a genetic predisposition to allergies, putting something on the skin, especially if they’re not eating it as well, may possibly cause an allergy to develop. Parents of at-risk babies are now encouraged to offer diluted peanut butter from 4 months, for example, as this dramatically reduces the risk of the allergy being triggered through the skin.

It’s really only important for a subset of babies, eg those with eczema, family history of allergy etc.