To be upset by health visitor comment?

[Squashie]

I took 3 month old DS to be weighed today and he was chewing on his hands (which he has been constantly doing for the last few weeks) and she commented “he’s clearly hungry, mummy must be starving you”. He had just had a big bottle 20 mins prior and I know the comment was probably made in jest but thinking about it when I got home I think it’s not really the right thing for them to be saying even as a joke? Baby is weighing well on 50th centile but I’m really struggling with PND and have really taken this to heart

It was a stupid joke to make to a new mum and she shouldn't have said it.

It was probably just her making small talk, but it is the type of thing that could upset a new mother and she should know better than to say it. You know the baby wasn't hungry you are doing a great job .

Yep to both of these.
But as a mum you have to develop a thick skin pretty quickky

Then they need better training.

That would annoy me too PND or not....

How helpful is this comment?

I don't recall any of my HVs, over 30 years ago, providing any useful advice at all. One of them would pitch up without having made an appointment, often when I had a "Please do not disturb" note on the door as I was napping while my baby napped or while I was upstairs giving him a bath and could not leave him to answer the door.

One told me to stop breast feeding on demand; that it would not increase my milk supply, "Because it doesn't work like that." and that I should be breastfeeding according to a 3 to 4 hour schedule.

Another told me that the large green spots that my newborn developed on his face a few weeks after he was born (which I understood were due to hormones or similar) were caused by the Infacare body wash the hospital had given me to bath him in.

Another told me, "If you do not do your pelvic floor exercises you will end up Mrs Wet Knickers by the time you are 50."

Stupid of her to say that. I would have quickly realised and when baby weight is taken I would say ”clearly not starving hah”. I would just try to forget about her silly comment and stick to the fact that you have done so well for your baby to thrive to a good weight

I've just remembered the time I took one of mine for a check up and the weight they registered was underweight but I had weighed at home and it was wrong . I was so upset I mentioned it to a nurse friend and she said they regularly have to recalibrate their scales and the scale was obviously not recalibrated and reading way off. If I hadn't known my little one was a normal weight and was eating and drinking and was perfectly healthy I would have worried myself into a knot

I haven't read the full thread (only the first page) but the general consensus on MN is that the HV (a trained professional) knows nothing and the mother (who may have been a mum for just days) knows everything.
The new mother must also be handled with kid gloves to the extent that there must be no joking in case it upsets her, no matter how irrational she is being.
What an isolated, joyless world these new babies have been born into, if real life is like MNLand.

Honestly? Try to lighten up a bit.

Terrible 'joke' from a health care professional who should have a good insight into how such comments to new mums still very much in the postpartum period can affect them. Was she a bit older? It would have upset me too though I don't think I'd do anything about it or take it further. Just reassure yourself she was the one in the wrong and it's no reflection on you or your abilities as a mum

I think it's a really stupid comment for a health visitor to make honestly. They will know that there are many occasions where babies experience 'failure to thrive', where their mothers don't produce enough breast milk and need to supplement, where for whatever reason, maybe unknown reason, a baby just isn't growing appropriately. Even if your baby is charting 'normally' you might have had a lot of anxieties or trauma around feeding your baby, or feel strong emotions about how you feed them, or be experiencing a lot of worries about their growth.

So saying something stupid like that is really inappropriate.

I would consider feeding this back to the service she works for honestly. Not a formal complaint, just a heads up, let them know what was said and how it came across and suggest this is reviewed in the future. She might be just a bit thoughtless, but it could prevent another parent from hearing something like this.

Health visitors tend to be very unknowledgeable when it comes to infant feeding honestly, the ones I had would spout the most utter nonsense about breastfeeding that had zero basis in evidence. I'm not really one to hold them in very high regard but even so, they should know enough to not say things like this!

Wow. My son spent 10 days hospitalised as a newborn for complications from starvation. Dropped so much body weight he came very close to brain damage. Went in to give birth, thought I was losing him (he was fading away, not enough breast milk, nobody believed me, and by the time they realised he was so poorly he couldn't even nurse anymore, had zero energy left), eventually took a health baby home but tore myself to shreds for MONTHS about what an utter failure I'd been to not only fail to feed him enough milk, but to not have stood my ground more when I KNEW I wasn't making enough milk. They just wouldn't listen.

A comment like this would have literally triggered my very real Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder from what we went through with him. From starving him to close to brain damage. I don't expect posters who say 'are you easily offended OP' or 'wow, nobody can make jokes anymore' to empathise or understand, but there's one single example of how a comment like this is on very shaky ground unless it's to a friend you know well, rather than a complete stranger whose inner life and past experiences aren't well known to you.

Oh for crying out loud.

HV should absolutely not be making 'jokes' like that. They're supposed to be there to support you. Awful.

Its very clearly a joke

That may well be, but it’s a pretty fucking stupid one to make to a likely-tired new mother when your literal job is care in the immediate postnatal period, and specifically weighing a new baby.

I... don't think anyone is arguing that it isn't intended as a joke, don't worry.

it’s clearly a joke.

this constant need to be offended and complain is tiresome.

I'm sorry your strugglig with PND - that must be very hard with a new baby as well.

Her comment was probably meant in jest but wasn't needed and not supportive, which all mothers need.

I have little knowledge of babies as now have 2 grown up children but am sure a babies hand in mouth - is a good reflection of their motorskills or teething.

As nurse, I would like to know if I made an insenstive comment (which sometimes we do and it is not intended) so I could be more mindful the next time.

Hmm I've just discovered a new flavour of I'm Not Like Other Girls...

I'm Not Like Other Mums.

I wonder how many of the posters saying “oh get over yourself” and “it’s just a joke why is everyone so easily offended these days” have had:

• A baby who was admitted to hospital because of not gaining weight and had to have lots of horrible tests to find out why
• A baby who was diagnosed “failure to thrive” or similar
• Severe PND

I imagine the answer is zero. In fact I hope it is because anyone who has been through any of the above should have more empathy for the OP.

Quite. I actually had a serious allegation made against me by a complete idiot of a HV and an equally witless locum doctor, who decided between them that I must be deliberately starving my visibly ill, constantly coughing and projectile vomiting baby. They shut me in a room without him and made really horrible comments and threats. I was terrified.

Luckily when I contacted my regular gp he bollocked them rigid (particularly the HV who had completely ignored my concerns about the coughing and vomiting and weight loss on a previous visit) and ordered an immediate chest x ray, after which my son was admitted to hospital with RSV and put on dairy-free formula.

There are some dangerous fools out there practising as HVs. The combination of arrogance and ignorance is lethal. If a subsequent HV had "joked" about starvation I would have had a panic attack tbh.

Please do not take anything they say or do seriously. Most of them are quite thick and you’ll be surprised how many of them don’t have children.