AIBU I’m thinking that lack of health visitor support will cause a lot of issues to be missed with new parents?

[LemonLemonLemon]

I have a 7m DS and have never met my health visitor. I had a 6m check over the phone because I asked her for one, but she didn’t ask about his weight, his physical ability or anything else really. I was incredibly nervous about weaning and have gotten all of my information from books and online. My DS hasn’t been weighed since 2 weeks old. I have no concerns regarding his development because he is well above his age with physical milestones, however I can’t help but think of the mothers and babies that need help.

Do you think a lot of mothers, fathers and babies will slip through the cracks? Our houses and living conditions aren’t being seen, no one is talking to us, seeing the babies or checking up on us?

I was able to get my 27-30 month review at home with our HV. We've had the same one since DS2 was born and she's amazing!! There were some concerns from me about speech development and she really put my mind at ease and gave me some useful resources.

We are in Scotland so not sure if the programme is different here?

I don't get the hatred on MN

@BackforGood I can only speak from my experience but they were sloppy (took short cuts), untrained (meant they were giving wrong - dangerously wrong- advice) and aggressively judgemental. And what is really worrying in my experience, they have no awareness that they're any of those things.

Given that they're relied on by lots of new parents that expect them to have the right knowledge and empathy, they do more harm than good in my view.

HVs in my area are worse than useless. I haven't seen one since my daughter was ten days old and I was the same with my son, they are no great loss to anyone in my experience.

I'm sure some HVs are good but personally I have had bad experiences - including being told to stop breastfeeding my then 11 month old and instead give her juice, oh and absolutely under no circumstances to give her any kind of eggs 🤨 I refused all other appointments after that. On baby number 2 now and will be avoiding HVs again.

Yanbu. I was seeing my HV once or twice a week when my dc were babies. My youngest is 6 though so not sure how much of the changes since then are due to covid and how much are because of cuts by the government.

My baby is five months. We’ve never met a HV. He’s not been weighed since he was born. I had some pretty frightening depression in pregnancy and was supposed to be fully supported postnatally with my MH as they were convinced I would develop PND. One HV called me once, got cut off before she could ask me about PND, left me a voicemail (no contact info) saying I ‘sounded fine’ and that was that.

My midwife said HV were pretty effing useless and they all couldn’t understand why they weren’t working when midwives were. She also said the maternity ward was regularly full but not with birthing mothers, with postnatal complications for mother’s and babies.

@ftm202020

HVs are mostly crap anyway so no great lost imo.

I've got to say this was my first reaction, too. What you need as a new mum is access to advice. Ideally that would be via your GP/practice nurse.

I think I saw a HV at 3 weeks and then for the 2 year check and that was that.

My HV was dangerously incompetent. She actively hindered getting my DS assessed when both his childminder and I raised concerns about his development at his 2 year check.

In the end I went to my GP who was 100 times more helpful and referred him on.
When my HV found out she rang my childminder to check up on what I'd told the GP, because she thought I was making everything up.

When he was diagnosed with ASD six months later, she sucked her teeth and said "well it must be VERY mild" and offered absolutely no advice or support.

When she rang me to book in his preschool check, I politey refused. She asked what school he was going to and I told her the name of the special school. She then got the GP receptionist to ring me that September to check which school he was at, because she still thought I was lying

YANBU. It’s an incredibly important role, in terms of supporting parents, picking up on important issues such as developmental or potential neglect or abuse... and yes like in every other job, not Everyone who does it is good at it, but as PP have said they’ve been brought to their knees by lack of staff, with huge caseloads they can’t possibly manage.

The less we support children and families in early years the more we pay the price in years to come that’s been borne out by data time and time again.

I understand some people don’t want checking up on, but surely in some cases it’s essential to pick up on neglect, abuse, and like PPs have said developmental issues. my HV was unbelievably unhelpful when it came to developmental disability. Soul destroyingly obstructive and then (IMO now ds is a young man) wickedly judgemental. She appeared to be under the impression if we tried harder that he could magically NOT have his disability . Stupid horrid arsehole.

DD is 13 and for 6 months I had an amazing HV, unfortunately she retired.

Her replacement was a dragon, undermining every decision we made, making me feel small and doing things wrong. So not helpful and I stopped going.

The only two times I did go was because I had questions about DD not being able to roll and push herself into sitting. Suddeny I was getting referrals and was treated decently. So as my GP basically washed her hands on anything baby related you need them.

We never had a 2 year check, we got a letter at nearly 3 year which was very much a joke and I sent it back with several comments which were never acknowledged.

It is such a hit and miss but no doubt that babies/toddlers will fall through the net.

We're having our one year check by zoom which is better than nothing! (Didn't have one when I lived in London)

OTOH I used to find getting DS1 (ebf until 6m, 25th centile baby) weighed really stressful - probably because I heard so many stories on here about HV pushing early weaning or formula top ups on lighter babies. I'm much happier not having weighed 9m old DS2 after 8 weeks (beginning of lockdown) - weaning is going well, and he's in the right size clothes for his age. So much less stressful not knowing what centile he's on!

It would be an important role if those doing it had sufficient intellect and professionalism. My didn't. Didn't even have the courtesy to make a mutually convenient appointment and turned up on the doorstep at 9am when the baby was 10 days old. You have to be pretty dim to think that's appropriate. She then told me I had to go to a baby clinic but couldn't tell me why. It was shocking.

Our HV was quite helpful, but mostly through the weekly weigh and play where you could ask all the little questions to a couple of helpful older ladies who were there. Didn't bother with weighing all the time, but it was great in the winter to have access to a different set of toys for the afternoon - you could just do the play bit of weigh and play.

When my son was a baby we were struggling with breastfeeding and I was convinced he had tongue tie. I was told my several midwives that he was fine and definitely no tie. I pushed the breastfeeding specialist midwife who said she would make a referral to the tongue tie clinic although said she was confident he didn't have one.
A few weeks later my HV visited and I mentioned I hadn't heard back regarding the referral so she said she would chase it for me.
She listened to my concerns and managed to get me booked straight in at the tongue tie clinic who had never been sent a referral from the midwife.
Turned out my son had 50% tongue tie and the clinic were surprised I was still exclusively breastfeeding after six weeks of struggling.
In my experience, our HV was great and I probably wouldn't have continued breastfeeding without the tongue tie being fixed.