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…)

That the WHO advice on length of breast feeding is only for women in developing countries.

I've remembered a neighbour's experience, albeit from the late 90s. Their son was born very prematurely and after three months in hospotal had to be given a tiny phial of drops with every feed - imagine six feeds a day.

They got into a wheel of doom with the hospital saying they had to be provided by the GP and vice versa. They sought help from their HV, she marvellously contacted them to let them know she had sourced the drops and would deliver them the next day. She was as good as her word and delivered them - all 4 of them. They needed 42 each week. She said she couldn't get any more and couldn't help further. The issue was that she didn't understand that it was an issue.

A close friend of mine had a HV call her weekly because her baby wasn’t pulling to stand by 12 months. My friend said she offered no advice or guidance, and the weekly calling was just causing her stress and anxiety. Rigidity around these ‘milestones’ can cause women so much (often unneeded) anxiety, especially when assessed in such a tick box manner lacking any holistic overview and understanding. Really unhelpful.

Doing their best isn’t actually an excuse for some of the things described on this thread though. It’s completely irrelevant.

If any HVs reading this feel disheartened, it should be because some of their colleagues are incompetent idiots (“I don’t believe in vitamins because I’ve never seen one” ffs) bringing the profession into disrepute with their stupidity and their judgemental attitudes.

I had one ok health visitor and I’ve also had two absolutely incredible health visitors.

One of them literally stayed at my house for hours while my baby (with severe reflux and an undiagnosed dairy intolerance) screamed non-stop in her arms- just to give me a break. She continued to pop in every few days to check I was ok. We had no family nearby and I honestly think I would have gone insane without her.

She got an appointment with a lovely doctor who diagnosed my baby with a suspected dairy allergy/intolerance and immediately booked her in for allergy tests. If it wasn’t for her, I’d have probably suffered for several more weeks thinking I had a baby with extra bad reflux/colic (as everyone/my family were telling me).

HV visited then I had a different HV call me up and say my son had been tip toeing during the original visit. This is not something I witnessed at all. Original HV never mentioned it at the time.

so then they were basically saying suspected autism / developmental issue and wanted to visit again. Reluctantly let them and within 2 mins of being there they had decided there was no issue.

you have no idea how much stress they caused me
over this.

A friend of mine was a midwife followed by a HV for 10 years before she had her first. She told me that during her first month with her baby she’d done every single thing she’d been telling new mothers not to do, for years!

I got told the same thing by my PIL 🙄
”they only advise that because of mothers in developing countries who can’t get food”

I wish people knew how silly it sounds when they say that they'll "bite".

Actually, in defence of them, mine was fantastic - to the point that, when the GP was being an absolute twat with the Neocate prescription DD needed with a severe CMPA - she went and staged a sit in in the doctor's surgery and refused to leave until she had issued a prescription for as much as we needed, then went to the pharmacy and collected them for me.

The GP had been putting us through utter hell over this prescription, leading to DD dropping weight like mad cos we didn't have enough of the needed formula - and the HV had had enough at that point so went mildly thermonuclear bless her!

'Nevermind, you might get a boy next time'

🤮

Well I’m going to bite about your comment. What on earth is wrong with using a perfectly normal phrase?

It's not normal. I've literally never seen it anywhere, except Mumsnet. I cringe everytime I read it.

I hear what you say, but over many, many years I've had many staff who were doing their best. Unfortunately, if they weren't adequately fulfilling the requirements of their role, doing their best was irrelevant if they couldn't competently and effectively do their job.

Outside the NHS people are dismissed for incompetence. Sadly, it seems, inside the NHS excuses are made and we all pay for the incompetence. Economically and experientially.

It has to cease.

Many years ago now. I weaned child no 5 on to doorstep milk at 9 months. HV said it had to be ‘follow on’ milk. I pointed to his strapping 10 yr old brother, and said ‘well, it didn’t do him any harm’.

’Ah, but babies have changed a lot in the last ten years,’ she replied.

Mine told me my son would be severely obese if I didnt stop giving him milk. He was literally 14 months old. Spoiler - he is a very slim 13 year old that drank milk every single night before bed until he was 7.

As an NHS health professional I completely agree.

My autistic non verbal 4 year old didnt talk because I didnt talk to her enough...

Omg, the constant repetition from everyone that ‘older baby’ and ‘toddler’ formula is more expensive than first formula. It’s not, it’s cheaper!!! A cursory glance at any supermarket would tell you that, plus the law in this country means first formula can’t be promoted - therefore can’t be discounted - which is why it’s so bloody expensive. Later formulas are unnecessary, true, but they were invented so they could be advertised by companies/shops and are heavily discounted, so are much cheaper! As someone who wanted to breastfeed and unexpectedly had to spend thousands on formula during a very tight self-funded maternity leave, this made a big difference. I asked and asked if there was any negative to moving to older formula (and yes, I KNOW it’s not necessary, but for my finances) only to be constantly told ‘oh it’s more expensive anyway’. No it isn’t!!!! I did move, and she’s bloody fine. Thank god for formula keeping her alive.

Health visitors have zero knowledge about formula or bottle feeding, they only care to push breastfeeding. All their advice is comparing to breastfeeding which is totally useless when you physically can’t do that. Incredibly frustrating. I remember when I had to start bottle feeding because my baby had dropped so much weight, and I hadn’t prepared for it at all, I had just assumed I’d breast feed, I asked so many questions because it’s not easy - baby was sick all the time - and was basically told ‘oh we don’t advise about bottle feeding, shrug’.

What a complete cow.

Everyone knows that there are good, bad and simply mediocre in every job.

Talk about midwives, GPs, obstetricians - there will be some bad experiences but positive is usually the majority in natal care. Its HVs which consistently generate the most negative responses.

As to how and why - look at the responses that appear on these threads from posters self describing as HVs. Mothers describing real problems experienced at a time of vulnerability are bullshitters and liars.

If I assumed my clients were bullshitters and liars when reporting problems my company would go bust. We have to respond and look into the issue and where necessary address issues, improve training/skill levels if needed.

I was given actually dangerous advice on breastfeeding but the reply on raising this with the HV service was quite dismissive and said that breastfeeding training was “offered” to HVs. No acknowledgement of the wrong advice or even that the HVs in question would be given more training - that it was “offered”. The casual racism was apparently all me for “misunderstanding” as all HVs were “sensitive” to ethnic requirements, completely missing the material facts of the issue in favour of wrong assumptions.

How can a service improve when issues are not taken seriously, problems dismissed and clients blamed as the problem?

When we had 5 month check up she very seriously told me that we have to start training our DS to sleep earlier to prepare him for school.

And also that I have to get rid of every piece of furniture when DS starts crawling - she literally told us to throw out coffee table. Not even baby proof just straight to the tip.

I had this. My son was covered in eczema that appeared suddenly. I asked for advice and got none but she did ask me if one of the marks was a burn.

That's lovely. I feel pretty cheated with my HV experience with my 3 children. It was particularly hard as a first time mum, but there were places I asked for specific help with my 2nd and 3rd and it wasn't forthcoming.