Werid questions from health vistor

[Sunbeam1112]

It seems to change all the time currently pregnant with DC 3 and had my health vistor pre baby visit. With DC2 i had my intial visit at the beginging of my pregnancy normal standard questions.

my DD had her 2year check couple mobths everything ok HV wad impressed how advanced DD was. So when i had my visit on monday i was taken back by the questions asked.

H/V Questions asked
Mine & DH childhood how would we describe it?
If we had siblings?where they treated better?
Who was i closest to growing up?
How did our parents discipline us?
How do i discipline my children?
Asked about our fiances if we could afford the house? Explained my DH was on a very good wage.

Asked about domestic abuse twice?
Past relationship with DS dad
Asked twice if i self harmed?

Aibu to seem to think it was OTT. Given we live in a nice area, clean tidy house, Already got 2 DC no problems. She read from two questionnaires. Spoke to my SIL who is a social worker and said shes probs be on safe guarding course or they might of been a child death in the area. H/V is doing additional two visits after baby. She said at the end shes happy nothing to worry about. Just odd to do so many for a third baby.

It's one thing to ask if a person has any financial concerns and quite another to ask what someone's partner's or spouse's salary is.

Agreed, that is overstepping the mark. I'm hoping that particular HV was told to ask about the "financial situation" and got the wrong end of the stick. Or maybe she's just very nosy

I'm sure I've told this before on here but two days after my DD was born HV came round. Only time we ever saw her. She was the most patronising person I've ever had the dubious honour of meeting. Talked a load of guff about breastfeeding vs formula feeding and "taking time for yourself as a mummy" for ten minutes and then said- straight faced- "obviously we very much disapprove of domestic violence and we do say that if you do disagree as a couple and have any domestic violence that you should make sure you do it in when your baby is not in the room." Me and DH were left . I rang up and complained about her!

Bloody I didn't mean YOU got the wrong end of the stick, I mean the HV got the wrong end, so asked more "specifically" then she was allowed to.

They can ask but you don't have to answer!

Don't if you don't want to.

Don't blame you, bloody!

We didn't have an HV visit before DS2 was born last year. But she did phone in a slight panic (I think) after the perinatal psychiatric service wrote to her to say I was seeing them due to previous PND. When she visited after the birth she asked me whether there was a risk of FGM in my family - a very important topic but it seems unlikely to be a major risk in a white British family with two sons? She came back again when ds2 was 6 weeks old and I was in the throes of PND by then (regularly seeing a community psychiatric nurse) and asked me how I was feeling in a much less skilled way than the CPN. Not on purpose but I think she was just out of her depth and, as someone else has described, offering reassurances like 'I can see you love your baby and have bonded with him' when I wasn't sure I did or had actually and left me feeling worse than ever. She hasn't been in touch since and he's nearly 6 months old. My CPN tried to contact her a number of times and she said she would refer me to some local groups but none of it happened. Luckily I'm feeling much better now anyway ...

I remember when this kind of ante natal/post natal questioning became policy (was a HV till I jumped at the chance of a career change 3 yrs ago ).
In theory its a good idea, research shows that it can help improve outcomes if done properly.
The problem is that it's usually brought in on the cheap, without proper training for HVs. We were told that the forms had to be filled in at the first contact, so no chance to build a trusting relationship. In fact must have put many women off seeing the HV again.
People weren't given any information beforehand, IMO they should have had written info in early pregnancy about what would happen at HV first visit, and should've had the opportunity to refuse consent.

we had loads of training on the antenatal/post natal promotional interviewing- in fact overkill I thought when most if it should be guided by intuition/common sense

sharon great that you had loads of training, hope its the same in all areas now.
Best not to assume that all HVs have intuition/common sense. I've worked with some unbelievably crass ones.

There are people over on the Archers thread itching for Helen to be asked these questions by an HV or similar. There's a very clear illustration right there about how a tidy house in a naice area and a mother with one other child are no guarantee that everything is fine.

Gruntled -you beat me to it

Bloody hell. Is this in the UK or North Korea?

It all sounds bizarre to non-British people. You put up with this shit? And I thought your schools were bad enough, this is just beyond....

ZiggyFartdust It's the deeply entrenched social problems that unfortunately calls for a nanny-state.

Really? Because I would say that some of your deeply entrenched social problems are caused by your nanny state. Or exacerbated by it, anyway.

I mean, its not like your nanny state is helping is it? The problems keep getting worse, not better.

I think they ask about your partners income because of child benefit. So if your partner doesn't earn over the threshold they will tell you about applying for child benefit after the birth etc. I don't think it's anything more sinister than that!

What nobody in the HV service seems to acknowledge is that this type of scrutiny can trigger feelings of vulnerability, anxiety, worthlessness and stress in new mums.

DD was born in 2015 and we didn't have this. If, with a future DC2, this is on the agenda, I'll just not answer. In fact, I'll refuse the 3rd trimester visit. For me it would be a waste of time and annoying.

Fine for others to accept but OP if you have better things to be doing, just say no. Seriously.

You see this, this is like a red rag to a bull to me:

"I know from being a student nurse on placement with a HV many years ago they stated alot of middleclass mothers suffered alot with anixety mental health issues,post natel depression etc especially being career led moms who went from having full time jobs to full time mom"

I had the same experience pre-kids and I was very much led to believe by HV colleagues that there was a band of prissy first time mums with no care in the world and too much time on their hands who got "very anxious" when left alone with babies.

When I had PND with my second, I went into HV appointments knowing that this is not an uncommon sort of prejudice. I wouldn't have told a HV ANYTHING about my personal or family history as a result,

I had an appointment with an Occupational Therapist as part of my treatment and she was "very surprised" and very with me when I said I didn't feel my struggles had anything to do with adapting to my role as a mother (given that I had a 2 and a half year old and had no prior issues, this was hardly a strange thought on my part). I found it very invalidating and intrusive that she would decide she knew my feelings and history better than I did myself.

In reality, I had been working in a horrendous child protection role, had been hugely stressed due to personal and family illness in the year prior to my second birth, had a terrible birth with my first (couldn't walk for eight months, doubly incontinent for a period), was recently estranged from my alcoholic father and was 400 miles from my family. It was just a crappy time and I struggled a bit also known as BEING HUMAN.

To be repeatedly asked about how I felt about giving up work (I was on a standard mat leave, NHS, guaranteed job), told to "make an effort" at playgroups and soon I would find it easy to talk to other people (I never, ever had any issue with talking to new people or inviting them back to my house etc) and "reassured" that it is hard to breastfeed when none of your family have (they ALL did, including my 84 and 95 year old grannies) was just... shit. Sometimes people have a "paint by numbers" understanding of really complex human issues, and it can be really unhelpful.

I stopped being a HV (and took a big salary cut, was on £40,000) because I realised the service was ineffective, a huge waste of NHS funding, and sometimes caused more problems that it solved.

First DC the HV were not actually bad at all - very helpful most of the time.

However this rang a bell - To be repeatedly asked about how I felt about giving up work (I was on a standard mat leave, NHS, guaranteed job).

My contract hadn't been renewed during pg so we decided to have me at home for a bit - wasn't only SAHM - awful lot more were taking extended maternity leave.

The HV did a first time parent meeting - very nice and welcoming but they often asked about going back to work plans. Only once did a woman say she was planing on being SAHM - other parents made no comments but god did she get vilified by the HV.

There are a lot of implications to being a SAHP - often ones not immediately obvious and worth considering but they weren't pointing those out - it was an attack - she would have pnd it was guarantee - she'd be a poorer mother as she'd feel stifled - she'd never work again.

Funnily enough I was very vague about my plans as were many other when it became our turn to talk. Most of those SAHM are back at work full time now anyway.

I have 3 children and the only time I got asked about household income was with dc3 and this was after the child benefit threshold came in. When the HV asked me about income I asked her why she needed to know and that was the answer I was given.

I do agree some HV could do with some communication skills training. Client rapour is very important and not sitting down to interview style questions. People do tend to open up in a less informal envirnoment. Especially as there is more awareness on pnd. People will open up about any concerns if theres an trust. HV seemed very old school in her approach.

As somebody who lived in a nice area in a clean tidy house house but was still abused I actually find this quite offensive.