about HV reporting me to GP

[spectral]

I took DD to her 2-year development check last week. It was at 1pm, which I wasn't thrilled about as dd is normally asleep then and that's important work time for me, but I didn't have much faith in the possibility of rescheduling again, as we'd initially had a letter making an appointment for a date already in the past. I turned up on time with a completed copy of the development questionnaire and a very sleepy DD.

HV went through the questionnaire asking each question again, word-for-word. About five minutes in she said I seemed 'stressed' and asked why; I told her that DD really needed a sleep, that I really needed the time to work, and that I wasn't sure why I had bothered to fill out the questionnaire in advance if we were going to go through it again word-for-word. Appointment went a bit faster after that; I said that I would ask for help if I thought dd needed it, but that we had no concerns whatsoever about her development. HV agreed no concerns. DD didn't want to cooperate with being weighed and measured, but HV said she looked pretty 'in proportion' so it didn't really matter, and appointment ended by mutual agreement.

Six days later I get a phone call from DD's GP saying he's had an email from HV about me and is 'calling out of a duty of care to a child' -- so clearly not a friendly call just to check everything's ok. I told him about the conversation I had at HV appointment, explained again why I might have seemed stressed, but that that HV had not indicated to me that she might have grounds for passing anything on. I pressed him to say whether there was anything out of the ordinary going on, and he said no, and I decided to be honest with him and say that I was very unhappy (ok, I actually said furious) that HV had decided to report me to my daughter's GP.

I am utterly freaked out, though. I adore DD and do my best for her, as does DH, and I think we are doing ok. I did express a negative opinion about the way the appointment was organised, but I think that should be allowed! What on earth is going on?

Sharon its a real shame to hear you as a mother, especially a mother who has had mental health problems too, insinuate that it hurts the children.
When will people realise mental health problems are no different to having asthma or breaking a leg?

No wonder people are ashamed to admit they need help.

They can cause harm if intervention is not offered though just like my mental health could be harmful to myself if I don't get the help and support I need. Not sure why that fact makes me such a cunt tbh

Peppermintcrayon I agree with you child protection is for every child and yes this H V didnt get it right but just shared information of what she saw an agitated impatient busy mother which could easily an agitated defensive in crisis mother who wanted out as quick as possible.

Poo mental health issues vary hugely in seriousness. From mild depression to psychotic episodes there's a massive gulf and of course it CAN hurt children's development or safety. It is not the same as a broken leg.

i had the opposite experience to the OP. i had what i can see looking back, severe post natal depression with episodes of psychosis. My HV did the Edinburgh test for PND and told me in the same breath that i was clinically depressed and had i considered doing a freezer sunday where i cooked stuff to be defrosted during the week. Harped on about the rubbish in the front garden (dp is abuilder and was half way through sorting crap for the tip on the day he came). Told me i was very ill and that she was worried. That i wasn't to worry she'd come back the next day.

I never saw her again. In fact my pnd was left untreated for two years. By that time the depression and anxiety took hold and I am now 8 years down the line and still on medication. I am slowly getting better but i actually feel grief for those lost years that should have been happy years. I have no confidence and lost my career.

I often wonder what would have happened if that woman had done her job properly and raised a concern. My dd was and still is fine but i fucking wasn't. I was cracking up. if it wasn't for my dp id be dead.

i wish a dr had phoned me out of a duty of care

LEM, intervention is the following,

Professionals sitting in meetings telling each other lies and writing lies in reports and doing nothing to help just boosting their ego, putting you down and giving you and your dc zero help just basic bullying and threats of fines and prison for attendance levels. I know as I read files. I have evidence to showed they lied.

My dc needed things like netbooks nd chairs at school instead they were taken out of class for handwriting lessons put down and lost out on standard lessons. Handwriting lessons were inappropriate to their dx medical condition.

They ignored medical reports and me and tortured my child bullied her damaged her knee so bad it is a life long injury and refused her first aid.

I could go on... They did nothing to help us only bullied, lied, projected , used us to boost their ego and placed their fantasies in reports.

The carry on was disgusting abuse of power and trust and if they are an example of cp then God help the children.

I am sure they must lie in genuine cases where children need protecting too. It was so widespread in our files it changed my perception of these odd bods.

I wouldnt know about that sort of thing, Joan - it sounds awful :(

I just know that my very experienced HV couldn't have got things more wrong, i was coping day to day but i wouldn't leave my bedroom with DD for the first two weeks of her life because i thought she was going to die - that is not normal behaviour, I made threats to DP's clients and attacked my DP with a knife - this woman gave me a recipe for beef beoginon (sp) She was totally out of her depth. Thank GOD my DC were safe, in fact i think i probably would have won medals for being a perfect mother but everything else was going to fuck around my ears. She knew all of this, yet still no help. I finally got help when a lovely practice nurse recognised how unwell i was and made a referral to the GP, the shame was that this was two years later and by that time the chemical imbalance in my brain was more hardwired than it would have been had there been intervention in the first instance. I would have recovered far more quickly, as it happens i am still on medication and unable to work.

She was very bad at her job, old school, dubious advice.

I met another HV who was very good, i guess its like any profession, good and bad. Id rather have had a phone call from a concerned Dr that wasn't necessary like the OP than left coping with crippling anxiety for a further two years without treatment.

Oh Lem. What a sad story. I wish I could say I'd not heard similar, but it seems too common.

Why do people get so stressed over a baby having a nap, and so tied down by it?! It won't cause the world to end if they happen to miss it. Chill!

Kaekae
I used to think like that - until 2 years ago we had twin DS's.
DS1 has always been a good sleeper but DS2 went through a stage (admittedly very brief) of not being so good. He had about 6 months of basically being a pain in the a*se! He slept very lightly and his sleep was very interrupted - only getting a couple of hours at a time. When he wasn't asleep he was basically crying - constantly!

He would often fall asleep mid morning for 2.5 - 3 hours and if anyone interrupted that then woe betide them, they knew they had pissed me off!
It's amazing what a few months sleep deprivation can do to a person.

On a more general note, a friend of DW's had awful trouble with SS. She has 2 DC's very close together in age and got divorced shortly after her second was born. It was amicable enough and she is a very 'together' person anyway (DW has been her best friend since junior school) but SS just decided they needed to stick their noses in for some reason!
God knows what it was, maybe they caught her on a bad day (when she can appear a bit 'dotty' if flustered - like we all can) but she said they were 'like a dog with a bone' and wouldn't leave her alone for over a year.

Once they rang her when she was at our house wanting to know why she wasn't home and where she was, where are the kids, are they with her. They had just turned up at her house unannounced and then got all grumpy that she'd dared to go out.

When we had our she just said to us, 'whatever you do, just stay off SS radar'. If you've had a bad day / no sleep / stressed at work or whatever and you've got a HV appointment then put your game face on, smile sweetly and act like life is a breeze!

On her advice, we had a couple of HV appointments so we wouldn't look weird and stand out as new parents declining 'help' and then quickly declined any further contact.

Joan, it's very unfortunate if you had a poor experience of child protection proceedings, but I assure you that the picture you're painting of professionals is not the norm, at all.

I can totolly understand where you are coming from. It is shocking. In the states, there are people who have lost their children to child protection services, because of medical professionals thinking they have power. There are a lot of cases of parents who dont want to follow the vaccine schedule or refuse to vaccinate their babies are threaterned with vaccinate your child or we use child protection services to take away your child. It looks like we are going the same way, but that is another topic. Anyway, I would just decline any futher appointment with the HV and change doctors if you really feel uncomforable.