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…)

Yes it is or sugar and water. It does stop diarrhoea, they aren't going to be living on it, just having it to treat the diarrhoea.

HV told us that we had to get rid of our cats because cats hate babies and will try to smother them to death.

She also insisted that DD had cradle cap (I don’t believe she did) and that I had to cover her whole scalp in Vaseline overnight. I thought that sounded like a bad idea but didn’t want to be Mrs Know It All as I definitely know I can be, and I had PND so very down on myself. When we woke up the next day the Vaseline had caused a reaction with terrible redness and, as I suspected, was proving almost impossible to get out DD’s hair. Called HV for advice and she freaked out and said “don’t tell the GP I advised that!” DD lost all her beautiful hair and it seemed to precipitate an ongoing, awful eczema condition. 😢

This ultimately.

Having said that I complained about the midwife who made a home visit. It was upheld and the comment was that they weren't surprised when we named the midwife. It sounded like previous.

It makes me think that one of the problems is that shite staff are retained no matter how terrible they are and despite bosses knowing they are terrible instead of sacking them.

I saw our health visitors once, no follow ups etc. No 1 year visit etc. 2017, so well before covid.
I didn’t miss her (she was useless), but its not much of a safeguarding thing if they only spend 5 minutes once?

She was maybe worried about the impact the breakup had on your child and gave you opportunity for her have some space to explore this. It’s a pity you didn’t see the HV again to clarify things.

Please don't get me started on this. In pregnancy they referred me as high risk for GD because I am "Asian" even though Asia is practically a third of the world with many different ethnicities and in the specific part of it I'm from, women actually are way less likely to get GD even than white British people. I had to offer to show the midwife team academic articles before they let me decline the GD screening.

So no, it is not helpful of them. The PA had no idea what he was talking about. He was just trying to be right on. He all but accused me of thinking it's better to be white.

I really should stop engaging with you, but yourr most recent post is so outrageous that i just cannot leave it unchallenged.
So, as I suspected, you really have no expertise which would allow you to comment on the production of a human-based formula milk alternative and it's just a nice idea that you had that you're sure must be possible, despite know relevant applicable knowledge on the subject, not surprising and hardly worth going into any further with you.
However, what I absolutely cannot leave unaddressed is your outrageous misrepresentation of what life was like for new mothers prior to the advent of formula milk. Wet nurses were a luxury only usually available to the financially well-off in society and I think that you will find that the profession of wet nurse itself was largely a result of high infant mortality rates which left nursing mothers who had tragically lost their babies with a surplus of milk which they would then sell to wealthy women to feed their babies. Far from living in a feminist utopia, wet nurses were often grieving mothers forced to breast-feed someone else's child in order to make enough money to provide for their families, just another example of the ways in which women's body's, and even their loss, have been commodified throughout history.
Putting aside the often exploitative history of wet nursing and assuming that your vision of a world in which everybody gladly and freely offers to breast-feed the babies of complete strangers came to pass, how on earth do you envision this working on a practical level? Would I have had to have had a lactating woman come and live with me or would I go and live with her or, maybe you'd suggest I send my baby off to live with this stranger because she can offer something I can't, ignoring the fact that I'm her actual mum, the person who gestated and birthed her and who loves her more than anything in the world, because the ability to breast-feed apparently trumps all that. Also, this woman is presumably still breast-feeding her own baby, between feeding hers and mine and, who knows, maybe several more if you get your way, how is she supposed to find time to eat, sleep or use the toilet? Also, if someone is feeding my baby every few hours how am I ever supposed to bond with my own baby. Who cares about having a warm and loving relationship with your own mother as long as you've got breast milk, right?
Your idea of a breast-fed utopia where lactating women are treated as dairy cows and babies must be separated from mothers who cannot breast-feed them looks like a terrifying dystopia to me and the fact you can't see that is extremely disturbing.

I didn't say wet nurses. It's biologically and historically normal for women to nurse each other's babies, on an equal social level. We evolved in communities of 20-150 people, often related, but certainly not strangers. You may look at that through a western lens and think it's weird. But your own ancestors probably did it (and some humans still do).

The vast majority of women could breastfeed their own babies directly if properly supported anyway. Those who need temporary or permanent alternatives, could get them, if we stopped creating capitalist solutions (e.g. formula) to capitalist problems (e.g. many forms of sexism).

And freeze-dried breastmilk powder already exists.

I think they just need to tick a box to say you’re not living in squalor and you’ve got all the correct baby equipment etc. Once they’re satisfied you’re not living in a squat they leave you to it.

My HV with my first two was amazing. She came out to see me regularly. I was in a DV relationship and I don’t think I’d have got through those years without her.

With my 3rd DC I saw a HV once. DD had her routine assessments at clinic, and we could take her to be weighed if we wanted (I used to do it at home and plot it in the red book myself). I imagine many abused children fall through the cracks these days.

👏 👏 👏

@rosiejaune Give it a rest. Not every woman can, or wants, to breastfeed and that is perfectly fine.

Please block her @Everlore

Gave me a leaflet on dangerous dogs whilst my elderly sprocker spaniel ran away from a bee that had got into the house 🙄 he’s terrified of anything that moves other than people and other dogs. That being said, he was never left unattended with baby anyway. Ever. He’s the biggest softie I know but he’s still a dog. Even when DD was in her Moses basket and I needed to go to toilet, kitchen or whatever I’d call him in with me. I threw the leaflet in the bin as soon as the door closed.

Not sure there is such a thing as an expert on parenting. And you couldn't be a HV at 22. Firstly a nursing or midwifery degree plus post grad qualification is required including proven leadership skills.

The HV who told me to make my eldest's bottles with less milk powder to water than recommended 'to stop him getting colic'? I met another mum in baby clinic who'd been given the same useless advice. Not only were our babies starving, they both got colic anyway.
Or the one where another of my children couldn't build a bridge out of building blocks & was obviously assumed to be pretty dim.. we'd never built bridges before, but he could ace towers!
Or their younger brother who the rest of us were encouraging to draw a face to please yet another HV, & she asked if 'he's always been spoiled?'

Pity none of them actually spotted that two of the younger ones were ASD.
#Waste of space.

Why? She could just stop replying.

You don't need to gang up on people just because you don't agree with them, or you feel defensive about something they said (and at no point did I criticise individual women for not breastfeeding, even though multiple people implied I did).

I criticised society in general, and the formula industry specifically. Because they've caused the situation where people act like it's a choice between apples and pears.

If you went to a human mother who didn't live in that society and asked if she'd rather breastfeed her baby (or ask a friend/relative to do it), or sexually assault some cows, kidnap their baby, steal their milk, send it to a factory and add a load more ingredients (potentially including bacteria, melamine, or heavy metals etc), send it halfway across the world, and feed it to them from a plastic bottle, she'd look at you like you were mad. Because you would be.

Re the science, methods already exist for removing/reducing phenylalanine from food. So it could be done in e.g. a local lab or hospital, so women deliver a batch of breastmilk, and get a processed batch back. I don't need to be a biochemist to know it's possible. Just an open mind about how to do things differently from how they are done now.

But this is a condition affecting 0.01% of the UK population. So I'm not sure how that (and other similarly rare conditions preventing unaltered breastmilk consumption) is relevant to properly supporting everyone else to breastfeed. Which HVs won't be doing if they are promoting C&G.

What a truly horrible post. Do you actually realise how much paperwork health professionals have to complete? We dont like it ourselves but we get into a lot of trouble if we dont do it.

And have you ever heard of the phrase asset rich, cash poor? She would have been wrong to go by the "obviously worth so much money" property. For all she knew you could have been living in a house owned by family but with little income, or the property could have indeed been yours but your income had reduced significantly since you had a baby. I think its you being judgmental and short sighted here.

And how do you know the 22 year old health visitor didnt have children of her own? Lots of people have their families young. How very presumptuous of you

Nursing/Midwifery degree is 3 years then 1
year post grad so you can indeed get 22 year old HV! Especially if they were the younger ones in the cohort.

Not really sure it’s worth splitting hairs, you get the gist- A recently qualified HV with no life experience of having their own children. It’s quite laughable ‘advising’ a lady that has managed to bring up 2/3 previous children and is on her 3/4th.

Because she told my friend! 😂

How very presumptuous of you to assume I made it up!

@sandrapinchedmysandwich What exactly is ‘horrible’ about that post? That poster is just detailing her experiences. Like most of us on this thread, we’ve had less than positive HV experiences.

You seem very vexed and defensive.

One, who came out to see a baby in our care, told me that the 2yr old I was fostering had Down’s syndrome- she could tell by looking. The child did not have Down’s syndrome at all.

Why is it any of your buisness what other mums do? You need to get off your high horse and focus on something else in life. You seem obsessed with other mums not breast feeding. It doesnt make you any better than anyone else because you breast feed. No wonder the hv didnt come back i bet she thought you were absolutely bonkers!! I also hope you dont consume dairy and your children also dont consume dairy or is that ok as long as it not "formula". Honestly get a life and leave other mums to feed their babies however they want!!

Same with social workers. Still making the same mistakes and showing lack of intelligence as 40+ years ago.

That celery was an ideal first food for baby led weaning.