To be scared HV thinks I'm neglecting my daughter.

[RoryPowers]

I'll try and keep this brief.
DD is our first baby. When she was born she dropped weight (I know this is normal). I persevered with breastfeeding (I thought this was for the best) I didn't have her weighed but she felt heavier to me.
When the HV came and weighed her she had fallen from the 8th to the 2nd quartile. I felt completely awful like I had been starving her purposely as I had been so intent on breast feeding rather than changing to formula.
She is getting weighed again this morning. I am petrified she hasn't gained again. Whenever I take her to baby groups or on the street people tell me how tiny she is and are shocked by her age.
I love her so much and she is well looked after. She always looks lovely and we are lucky that we can afford to buy her lovely things so on the surface everything looks fine. I'm so scared the HV thinks that this is all a front and that I just think of the baby as a dolly :-(. Any advice or experience or even a handhold will be gratefully received. Thank you.

My hv used the old formula fed growth charts as bf rates are so low in my area. I constantly had to remind her that dd was bf as she kept suggesting her weight gain wasn't enough, when in fact it was slightly above average a lot of the time.
Try not to worry too much about the centiles - dd dropped from something like 25th to 10th, my niece dropped even more - they're both happy, healthy girls

You poor thing - I so empathise with your anxiety. There is a FANTASTIC FB group called Breastfeeding Support and Information UK that had been my lifeline (DD is now 20 weeks still exclusively breastfed). The ladies who administrate the group are wonderful, available 24 hours, and SO knowledgeable about breastfeeding (more so than a lot of HVs!). Even if you want to stick with mixed feeding, I really recommend you sign up - it can be such a comfort when baby isn't behaving as you expected to have such a great support network to call on.

Congrats with your DD, I'm sure it's obvious to everyone hstvyou adore her and are doing your very best for her x

If it helps when I had my DD I got her weighed every week, the clinic was close to my house so I walked there, after a few weeks they encouraged me not to, unless I was worried (about weight or anything).

Your little one will likely have got heavier, are you Mix feeding now? I did that for some time.

Ofgs (pp whose name I can't remember), health visitors are not in the business of child snatching! They are there to help as much as they can and to help their clients access relevant services as necessary. Op if you're worried then just speak to the hv and she can reassure or make suggestions to help you or, if necessary, refer you on to the gp. She has no interest in judging you, she's saving her energy for her clients who are really really struggling and need every ounce of her professional ability to support them and their children. The real work hvs do is not centred around the worried well!

I second getting checked for tongue tie, my DS went from the 9th to the 0.4th centile in his first few weeks! The HVs, midwives and GPs were all very keen to berate me and terrorise me with threats of hospital readmission, but finally a lovely breastfeeding counsellor actually checked DS's mouth and immediately referred him to get the TT snipped!
Those early weeks/months, with all the focus on weight charts etc can feel scary and intense, but you'll get through it and before you know it they'll be ferreting up raisins from the floor (looking at you DS!) and you'll hardly remember what the fuss was about x

No HV don't have the power to take children away- even social workers dont with legal planning! Please don't pedal myths like this!

It may be different now but I know when I had DD 14 odd years ago I was told that the weight charts in your red book are designed for formula fed babies who gain weight more quickly than breastfed babies. This often leads bf mums to turn to formula because they feel they are failing. You have no hope of keeping up with the charts in those early months if you are breastfeeding.

I believe they are just about to change the growth charts to encourage more breastfeeding. So stupid when you get the 'breast is best' message rammed down your throat for your whole pregnancy!

OP - HV's are there to support you and many are utterly wonderful.

Your HV will be able to see from talking to you, that you are a loving parent.

She'll also be able to give you advice on what to do, if your DD has lost further weight and if this is a concern.

She won't think you are neglectful. She won't take your baby away. She won't report you to SS.

Speaking from experience here.... you are a new mum, that struggles with anxiety and has a DD that has lost some weight. That's a lot to cope with. You are doing your best for your daughter.

flying, do you realise how nastily that post comes across?

The OP is worried. Many new mothers are worried. If you have PND, you can get extremely worried about all sorts of things. It's not something to berate her for.

Many HVs are good, obviously. But some aren't. Some don't make women feel supported. It could be the case here. If it is, the OP deserves support and not belittling comments about her being 'the worried well'.

she's saving her energy for her clients who are really really struggling and need every ounce of her professional ability to support them and their children

So that would be the OP then who clearly needs support.

The HVs, midwives and GPs were all very keen to berate me and terrorise me with threats of hospital readmission

Wow, those bitches. How dare they be concerned about a baby? Obviously admission is a way to punish mothers and it would be much better to ignore a baby losing weight

By all means, rule out tongue tie OP - there is a good description of how to check for it yourself here. But it only affects 2% of babies (at most) so chances are it's not the issue.

That's actually a slightly odd way of thinking. Of course she doesn't think that

To be fair this is the OP's PFB. Lots of us dreaded the HV. My PFB's weight was a constant worry for me. My dc3 barely touched the scales.

Another poster saying try not to worry, it's only one centile drop and your baby hasn't actually lost weight, just the rate of gain has slowed slightly. They are normally only concerned about 2 centilitre drops and even then its normally just a case of monitoring and if no other concerns and no further drop then they have probably found their centile.

Similar to one of the PPs my baby was born on 2nd centile and has dropped to 0.4th but he is happy and VERY alert and has tracked that centile for a few months now. We are still waiting for our paeds check up but I think they will probably say he is just small. I also get lots of comments about how tiny he is, I really do know people don't mean anything by it but sometimes it makes me feel like I'm not feeding him properly and should supplement despite advice so far that it's not necessary.

Like others have said hopefully HV will support you with recognising any potential contributing factors and if not reach out to a local breastfeeding support group, helpline or lactation consultant.

Take care and try not to worry.

My hv, who was amazing, told me not to weigh mine. Said he wanted to get rid of the scales altogether.

His theory was scales just lead to anxiety and stress, when really it's a meaningless number. He said if a baby was genuinely sick or failing to thrive, then you could tell by looking at it, and carrying out a proper examination, long before the scales showed a problem.

He only weighed babies because parents asked him too.

shiny, come on.

Some medics are poor at communicating and impatient with people. They could easily come off as berating someone.

And it is scary thinking of your baby going back into hospital, even if you know it's the right thing. Six weeks ago my DP was in tears every time we went near the hospital and panicked when we had the baby weighed because she was so afraid of the baby going back there. It wasn't logical, and she wouldn't react like that now, but it's not very unusual.

The OP and other mothers get scared. It could be the medics are doing nothing wrong - in which case those mothers still deserve sympathy and support because it is bloody hard to be in a panic/coping with PND. Or it could be they've had the misfortune to meet some less-than-perfect professionals, which does happen.

HV's can be evil! My eldest went from 50th to 9% and i was distraught. HV gae me long lectures about waking him three hourly, feeding more etc. Second child did the same fall percentilwise and diferent HV just pointed out she was healthy, weeing, sleeping etc and looked fine and not worry re %'s!

Wow, those bitches. How dare they be concerned about a baby? Obviously admission is a way to punish mothers and it would be much better to ignore a baby losing weight

Shiny My point (fairly obviously) is that that was all they did. There was no attempt to try and discover why DS was dropping down the centiles so quickly.
They were concerned, but not as bloody concerned as I was I can tell you! Surely the fact I attended so many midwife, HV and GP appointments tells you that? I was desperate to find the cause of DS's weight loss, but until I attended the breastfeeding clinic (outside of my local area) I received nothing but judgement and threats, as if I was somehow purposefully starving my baby.
And hospital admission was used as a threat - I had been in almost 2 weeks with the birth (a complicated induction and then jaundice treatment) and was pretty desperate not to return. The HCPs knew this and played on it. The words were always "You will be sent to hospital if this doesn't improve" Never "ABC treatment or XYZ tests might be needed, which will happen at the hospital"

Sorry to derail the thread, but I don't think it's useful when the OP is suffering from anxiety to mock or belittle another poster's experience of similar issues.

My baby experienced centile dropping. I was anxious. Sometimes HCPs didn't help that. But I remained engaged and was eventually supported in finding the solution.

So take your elsewhere Shiny

Is it really only 2% for tongue tie?! That honestly shocks me as I'd have thought it was much higher than that. (Based exclusively on my personal experience where loads of babies have had TT.)

HV can make you feel useless, I see a rotation of a few and ill never forget how completely useless and rubbish one made me feel when I was asking for BF help when ds wasn't gaining weight. Similarly I have asking excellent HV who went above and beyond to get me an NHS appt for TT division as ds was officially too old in my local authority.

Don't be scared to ask for help Op. I was lucky, where I am there's a support group called breastfeeding together who give you a mentor and have a helpline etc, is there anything like that in your area? Feel free to Pm me.

I had same experience as Rhumba even with bf charts - which HV didn't always use - they went down the percentiles.

I give birth to large babies, I was told umbilical cord with first was impressive, who track down the percentiles. One didn't even lose weigh the first week just failed to keep on her percentile.

Some HV were off about that other said they were putting on weight were alert and active so were probably just finding their natural range on charts.

Even HV who were unhappy about the slow weight gain never thought I was neglecting my children - they just drove me mad pushing ff and early weaning.

If you've switch already to ff chances are baby will be putting on weight by next weigh in - so try not to worry. If you do have concerns talk to the HV - they should be able to reassure and support you.

I'm a HV ... if your baby has gone from the 9th to 2nd centile it's only 1 centile so please don't worry. We get a bit worried when babies cross 2 centiles as it can indicate they're not thriving and we would need to establish why. Your daughter was 9th centile to begin with so also don't worry about people's comments about her being small - she IS petite but she's meant to be . I'm sure your HV will just want to make sure she keeps tracking the 2nd centile / doesn't drop any further xx

FeministDragon thanks for making the essence of my point without the attendant defensiveness and emotions

Some babies and children are just very small. I know a toddler who dropped centiles and is now so tiny they had blood tests and CF tests to see why she wasn't growing when fed well and given vitamins. All the tests came back clear, she's fit and healthy but very small. There were concerns about her father and aunt failing to thrive back in the day, but no issues could be found and they weren't neglected either and are now normal sized adults.

The OP and other mothers get scared. It could be the medics are doing nothing wrong - in which case those mothers still deserve sympathy and support because it is bloody hard to be in a panic/coping with PND.

Totally agree with that - and also that some HCPs are poor at communication. But it is incredibly unhelpful to make an already anxious OP even more fearful of the HCPs who will be trying to help her and her baby - even if they don't always go about it in the most sensitive way.

It is not about denying anyone's experience but about being sensitive about sharing that experience. I had a terrible experience with a reaction to an anaesthetic but I wouldn't share that with someone terrified of having surgery.

There is a lot of hate for HVs and SS on MN and it gives a totally skewed view.

If it's a personality clash between HV and parent, I always recommend calling the head HV and asking for a different one. Some might think this precious, but it's in the child's best interests for the mother to feel able to ask advice or raise concerns rather than feeling that they are being judged and must therefore appear fine even if they aren't.

I had a cow of an HV who made very snide comments about us "waiting around for that mansion" while we were in shit temporary accommodation and also spoke to me through my baby saying "you just want mummy to give you real food don't you sweetie" (I was weaning him on stuff like mushy weetabix, banana, finger sandwiches and jars of baby food because the cooking facilities were poor and we were flat broke).

I rang the head HV in utter desperation because I had an appointment with her that afternoon and couldn't cope with seeing her again. She was very understanding about it, said that sometimes people just didn't fit with their HV and rescheduled the appointment with someone much nicer.

Let's all get a grip, the HV hasn't even said anything, just doing another weigh-in.

It is an almost completely insignificant drop from 8-2 nd percentile. A single poo before or after would cause that much change. It doesn't mean she hasn't gained weight, just that it is a fraction slower than other babies the same size three weeks ago.

I think talking to your GP or HV about your anxiety would be a better way forward.