To think that this text is not a replacement for a health visitor?

[CuteOrangeElephant]

I hope this picture is visible.

Health visiting in my area has been completely done away with to the point that there is not even a two year check.

Instead we get the occasional nugget of wisdom via text message, with no ability to reply.

AIBU to think that this is completely unacceptable and will eventually lead to children falling down the cracks?

Well unfortunately in my area they have a HV team and many are nursery "nurses" which aren't nurses at all, just people with an NVQ at level 3 in childcare. I found them very unhelpful when my child was struggling with his speech. In fact one laughed at me on the phone, and said what did I expect them to do? I mean I was asking for advice or for a referral for someone who knew what to do to assist my 2 year old. I think this type of unfortunate interaction and very old fashioned prescriptive solutions to sleep issues makes people say away from them. Although a relative is qualified nurse who then trained as HV and seems very caring, but I don't know what she is like professionally and she doesn't live nearby @Sayhellotothethings

The idea that only neglectful or generally shit or uninformed parents need HV input is nonsense.

That isn't the point I'm making. I'm saying that parents who are neglectful or shit are less likely to engage with these services, and the way that the services are delivered facilitates that lack of engagement.

I’m surprised at the qualifications too. Not reflected ime. HV are probably good for picking up on vulnerable situations, I hope so anyway.

I would have been delighted if the busy bodies had stuck to texting, tbh.

Okay, that makes our excuse for a service look positively amazing. Although dd hasn't been seen by a hv since she was 16 weeks and is now about to turn 16 months. We are in Scotland and she should have been seen at 8 months and then between 13 to 15 but nothing so far. She is up to date on her vaccines as they are done by someone else but given the mental health issues I had with dc1, I've found the "care" to be a bit shocking. Luckily we're all okay.

For the people saying they’re surprised about the qualifications what do you think the HV are there for? Don’t you think the person who does your newborn checks (5 day weight, head measurements etc) needs to have medical knowledge to understand whether the babies developing as expected or has medical needs? The way a lot of people are talking about them it’s like they think they’re similar to nursery nurses or other childcare professionals. That’s not their function at all. They’re there to look after children’s medical and development needs for the first 5 years.

You might not need them, but it is a very skilled job

I had a lovely health visitor 38 years ago
My ds hada serious milk allergy and a cleft lip and palate
I don’t k ow how I would have managed without her
She came round one day early on, two other little toddlers and said would you love me me to bath baby
I said, there you go, he’s all yours.
Sorry to see they’ve been cut back

One thing I’d say about the idea that parents should pick up on signs of developmental delay - we have a child with ASD, and when we started talking to friends about our concerns, we had a lot of reassurances that various behaviours were normal, or that he’d grow out of it, or that he’s a late developer etc.

I know it’s all well meant, but it’s the sort of thing that can make you think you’d just be wasting the GP’s time if you went to talk through your concerns with them.
Someone impartial like a HV is much more likely to give you an informed and honest answer if you ask them e.g. whether they think your DC’s speech is delayed.

2 year checks definitely still happen in this area. They have 2-3 midwifes weekly doing them in a room where I work. You'd be surprised the number of parents that don't turn up though.

I’m not surprised they’ve had training, it’s the midwife / nurse part mentioned below

So trained to understand parameters and to flag if outside this

I have not felt it was highly skilled, trained yes, some advice was a bit off in any case

I thought they did away with the 2 year checks years ago. I didnt het one with dd (13) it consisted of a check.list posted to the house.

I'm assuming you can still visit a clinic at your drs or call to speak to them?

“So trained to understand parameters and to flag if outside this”

But that’s not what they do. They’re medical professionals. Is this what you think your GP does?

Nope

My experience hasn’t been on a par with either midwives or GPs. So either I was unlucky or it’s not on same level.

@Passthecherrycoke but they don’t do any of these. no weighing (except in the weigh in clinics where you have to go to), definitely no measurements. they come after about 2 weeks, ask you a list of questions read from a sheet of paper. they don’t even look at the baby (or at you). it feels lime talking to a robot.
I would assume if something on the questionnaires up, they’ll informe somebody else.

My HVs have been crap. The PP who said they help with sleep - I got "you need to be putting him down drowsy but awake". Yeah, thanks for that nugget. They missed my PND. With DC2 I asked about weaning as she wasn't sitting up and wasn't interested in food and got one who told me to give baby rice and another who gave me word for word the change 4 life advice on weaning. They have a place, but not for run of the mill, everyday families.

Health visitors are specialist nurses or midwifes, they do a degree on top of their nursing or midwifery training that qualifies them to be a health visitor.

However, due to significant cuts, like all public services, they're only now able to target those with greatest need. Each authority will have different policies about who is the greatest need. Routine things like weighing clinics will often be carried out by assistants, with health visitors time more often being taken up with child protection issues, conducting cross agency work with social services and other agencies.

Specialist health visitors exist for young people (eg, teenagers with babies), however these are commissioned by region, and not all regions can afford the costs of joining / running these specialist services (as there are extra costs over and above just the training and employing health visitors).

Here and neighbouring local authorities community midwives hand over the the HV team on day 5 assuming the mother is healthy enough to be discharged. The HV then visits approximately 3 times in the next few weeks to weigh and measure your child’s head. Both with the intention of identifying medical problems related to the skull not closing/ weight not being gained. These are medical checks.

In another authority I know of you are expected to take your baby to them, but they still do these basic early days checks. Who does theSe checks where you live?

Following satisfactory early days checks, you can then take your baby to clinic as much as you like, or phone them if you need help.
They directly support vulnerable children via GP etc.

They are medical professionals, not social services.

YANBU. I got the same text last month. I also seem to remember getting a text at approx 5 months about weaning.

I also meant to say weighing clinics aren’t really a big deal- you can easily use their scales to weigh your baby and contact them if there is an issue or query. Here baby clinics are for all sorts of things, weighing is just a small part

I loved our first HV, they were helpful and got to know me and my little boy. I often called them if I had a query rather than having to go to GP and they got back to me same day. I'm a nurse and did a 3 month placement with HV and was very positive about the whole service...until I moved house and had to switch GPs. The new HV literally had my son in to do his little tricks of stacking boxes and she was entirely disinterested in everything I said as was I of her. It all felt very much like a tick box exercise waste of time for both of us. Honestly unless we move GP again I would decline the service for my 2nd after the initial few checks. I have no interest in her input, shes not adding anything to my life and my best friend is a speech and language therapist so keeps me right on that side!

@Yorkshirepudding1987 I wonder if we live in the same area

I'm from a country where there are 13 checkups total per child, with the last one at nearly 4. A check up is weighing, measuring and an appointment with a medical professional. At least one of those check ups includes a sight test.

Maybe that's why I am so baffled by the complete lack of care from authorities here.

They're not all highly trained. A relative works with a health visitor team and she has a very basic college health and social care qualification. She has had extensive on the job training but she's definitely not a nurse or midwife. She does know what's relatively normal within developmental guidelines and can refer on to other services for support though.
You definitely need to take what the HV's say with a pinch of salt but they are a good additional service to support women and children. Society will suffer if we don't have this.

They are all either midwives or nurses with additional training

That is absolutely not true!

I've had a mixture of HV (first time mum and I've been passed around the entire local team it seems, they're constantly on a loop of being "on training", holiday, long term sick).

One in particular has been awful, very old NHS advice BUT the "better" one is a mid twenties woman with no nursing or midwives background, and no children of her own. She's been good for some things, utterly inadequate in others.

I am pretty ok at researching and making solutions for problems so I think in our case most of their visits wouldn't be good "value for money", as a taxpayer I cringe at the waste really. However the 1 single, critical, really key time essential thing I needed the HV team for was breastfeeding help and problems latching... They were fucking nowhere to be found. The latest woman we had been allocated to had just gone on long term sick, two weeks before her big two week holiday to America.

I desperately, desperately needed help, it wasn't there, I called, they told me to go to the local support group in town, which is weekly and 5 days away.

Thank fuck for La Leche League, it's only by their support that bf didn't stop right then.

That was literally the difference between me continuing bf with support Vs not.

I can't forget that tbh.

The 1 thing my family needed timely, expert advice in home was the 1 time no one was there. I had to seek it out myself (in our case, literally, driving to another city for LLL help when I was a sobbing mess).

Health visitors need to focus on children with needs. There are not enough of them and sadly too many kids whose welfare should be their main priority.

Seeing healthy and happy children just so that the mother's can be told how well they are developing is a waste of resources.

Online resources are great and giving responsibility back to parents to educate themselves is the right thing to do. I'm sure any parents raising concerns and asking for a visit would see their request granted.