To not understand some attitudes towards health visitors

[IcouldstillbeJoseph]

I appreciate there are good ones and not so good ones - like in every profession.

What I find hard to fathom is the "getting one over on the HV" mentality. For example a conversation at a child's birthday party today:

"Oh yeh, the HV kept going on about putting her to sleep on her back so I used to just flip her over in her Moses basket whenever she was coming round"
"Ha ha yeah mine was really pro-breastfeeding so I didn't mention I'd given up after 2 days and used to hide the bottles"

I just don't get it. The HV are duty bound, by virtue of their profession to give the evidence-based advice. But if you're going to go against he advice then that's your choice isn't it - why does it have to be 'hidden' from them? Have I just never encountered a really judgemental one?! And they are only advising based on what they believe safest for the children - surely that's a good thing?

I'm not saying I did eveything mine advised but it just puzzles me why it's always the HV. You never really hear people talk about nurses or teachers like that.

You know what, they are a whole area of cuts that no one would fight against. I can't imagine any local paper running a campaign to keep them or large scale public upset if the government just scrapped them...

I used to be a HV and loved my job, it was second only to midwifery in job satisfaction stakes.

BUT

I have read some horrific experience of HV's on MN , I can get quite heated in my defence of the profession because there are excellent HV's out there. However, there are also some appalling ones too...I have worked with them and I have experienced one as a new mother. In addition it seems really difficult to get the bad ones out.

There are lots of issues with health visiting, not least that there seems to be no single expectation of what a HV does nationwide.....and it changes with the wind. So one time they are reducing the number of HVs and cutting back on development checks, then they are increasing the number and suddenly all children have to be offered development checks etc.....and that's just the tip of the ice berg.

Finally there are some people who just should not be health visitors.....just as some should not be nurses, doctors or in any caring role. I saw news last year that there will be training to teach nurses how to show empathy...well frankly if you need showing how to care for someone with empathy then you should not be in the job. Likewise if as a HV your manner with new parents is to undermine and knock the confidence out of them then you need to leave.

I was never comfortable with the underlying "threat" of SS if you disagreed with the HV.

I understand that the service is optional and yet you are viewed with suspicion if you decline the service. AFAIA, HV guidelines state that an unannounced visit should be made if two appointments are missed. How is this optional?

I had a perfectly nice health visitor. She was relatively young and seemed to be well-informed. Although possibly because I knew enough to query her more reflexive advice (infacol for wind for example, when actually I knew it wasn't DD getting air bubbles that was causing the pain so infacol would have done fuck all and my independent midwife's advice that DD would grow out of it was correct). When I questioned it she did agree that infacol wouldn't help with intestinal bubbles (vs stomach ones).

She certainly didn't come across as judgemental. She was quite calm for example about the fact that DD and I occasionally bed share (and phoned back later to tell me how to access some info on how to do it safely).

I didn't feel the need to lie to her other than about possible PND signs (experience with HCPs previously re MH has been monumentally unhelpful - the NHS would be my absolute last resort if I felt I was depressed again). So my issue rather than hers on that front.

HV for first child was lovely and professional. Hv for 2nd was an absolute nightmare. I encountered 2 of them who made me feel like total shit and sneered at me when I was struggling. Ive refused all further visits and check ups as they were so awful and if I have a 3rd child they won't be getting over the door at all.

The one I had for my 14& 12 yo was fine but I really can't remember seeing one with my 6yo at all

Oh yes, close age gaps- the two twats I had to deal with exchanged snide looks with each other while speculating about how much help I must get. Er I got no help at all but what the fuck has it got to do with you two? God the post natal 'care ' I experienced as a matter of course was horrendous on all counts and has really put me off having more kids. Fuckers !

Me too woss. From the so called recovery ward at the hospital which was diabolical to the patronising hv who made me feel judged and as though ss were around the corner coming for me. Nightmarish.

And should I have a second child I will refuse them entry. Sorry to be extreme but my experience was the exact opposite of helpful.

My first health visitor was lovely. About as use as a chocolate tea-pot tho as she seemed to have a policy of not telling parents how to bring up their own children so every question I asked she'd answer with "Well she's your baby so it's up to you."

Ironically enough, I would've preferred a more strident, law-laying-down type back in the early days.

I had 20 months between my first two (at 23 having the second) no one said anything. Mind you I think I am quite thick skinned so they might have and I chose not to hear...

Seriously though, my first hv was really helpful. My eldest didn't develop normally, cried all the time etc. And she used to come round when I called her and would hold her to stop her crying, tell me to have a bath etc. She was more supportive than my own mother

While it is meant to be evidence based, they're human and - particularly involving children - there is a lot of bias and baseless opinions passed on as facts that goes unchecked.

I've been far happier with the HVs than the paediatrician, even those who seem to feel like they should get a house tour (no), those who aren't up to date on information (like the dangers of socket covers) and those not quite paying attention (particularly at clinics), but I've been blessed with them being mostly okay (though they've been more okay as I've gotten older and had more kids) unlike out local ped who really does let her bias go unchecked even in the face of evidence. She's seriously, to us and in reports, said DS1's speech delay and comprehension issues (he didn't ask why until he was 6 and had great difficulty responding to things properly) was just an "odd cadence" caused by my having a foreign accent. My DP having speech problems in his family (and also a not local accent) was not relevant enough to include or discuss. She also tried to convince us that he would get speech help in schools, when only the very additional needs schools in our area have and to dismiss the hospital specialist on our daughter's severe skin issues and actually told a 5 year old that if she didn't bathe daily, she would be the stinky girl with no friends (every other day at 5 with severe skin problems isn't good enough apparently, her written report afterwards discussed that she had to convince us that bathing wasn't damaging as if we never bathed them and didn't mention that she is under a hospital specialists care). My DD was sobbing all the way home. I refuse to see that paediatrician again, which is frustrating as she's the only one at our local health centre.

I've had a host of issues with medical professionals, from really random ideas (I still don't understand the "deep milk ducts" term a midwife used after having my first), to laughing at us for being different from them, to telling horror stories in from of the kids when we didn't instantly agree, to being told I don't love my child because X, to being lied to, to being physically assaulted in hospital for daring to questioning how a test was relevant to my condition and trying to refuse consent (I never got the results of that internal or what it had to do with my having spent the day vomitting).

I'm certain that I've omitted or sugar coated information to make lives easier. For example - they often ask when my parents are coming to visit/when I'm going to visit them - I haven't seen them since before my eldest was born but I don't say that, especially after they going on about what great support parents are, I don't feel much like talking about it and like others I've lied about co-sleeping because explaining my disabilities and postpartum bedrest is irrelevant to their point of view and a waste of energy for everyone, and I never bring up my disabilities unless it is directly relevant or asked because it has never gone anywhere good for us. I mean my DP tried once with a support worker who was specifically there to help my older two children who were in the scheme because we have disabilities, and she laughed at him and dismissed them. There is omission/deception to other professionals. I remember my mother bold face lying to teachers and hearing from her conversations with other adults that this was not uncommon.