To think many services and professionals infantalise new parents

[Annacondas]

Since becoming a parent for the first time last year (DD is one next week) I’ve been shocked by how often parents are infantalised. Often told information that’s not really true just to make them feel better.

Things such as
‘fed is best’ - no fed is the bare minimum expected of a caregiver. Factually breast milk is better for your child than formula - and I say this as someone who chose to formula feed because I like my sleep This also spills into weaning, with parents who gave their 10 month old nothing but chips for dinner told ‘well he went to bed with a full tummy, remember fed is best’ no no no.

Food before one is just for fun - again a total myth, food before one is essential for oral development and nutrition as there are a fair few nutrients that aren’t passed well through breast milk or formula (Iron is the main one) but many doctors, health visitors etc. keep telling parents this to stop them worrying about their child’s eating, but it’s simply not true. It then leads to those parents telling others this myth making whole swathes of parents not consider food before one as important.

‘You can’t do anything to help kids meet their milestones faster’ - again, factually incorrect. There are many exercises that parents can do with their child to help them roll, crawl, walk, talk etc. a lot faster. Yes it’s not necessary to do those things and most children will hit their milestones eventually, but it doesn’t make it any less inaccurate that parents ‘can’t’ do anything to speed this process along.

Those are just the ones I’ve seen and heard over the last few months but there are many more I’ve forgotten along the way.

AIBU go get annoyed about new parents being treated like idiots, or is it maybe the case that many new parents are idiots and this kind of nonsense is necessary

@Ingibjörg someone is touchy today

The problem is that in saying the absence of harm is the threshold of advice and guidance doesn't make society more equal.
It's not going to be the parents who know the importance of a varied, balanced diet, reading to their children, playing with their children, promoting good wash and teeth brushing habits, choosing to do tummy time Vs sitting in a rocker, who are going to ignore the professional minimum soundbites and do what they know is best.

Then we wonder why there's such a big difference in children's outcomes. It's complicated and covers a range of factors, but I'm not convinced telling parents that it's all fine as long as nobody's causing harm is the right way to do it.

A parent's noticed their child's physical development is different.
Option A) "don't worry, most children hit their milestones in their own time"
Vs
Option B) every child is different so it's not a concern yet. Here's some good strategies you could try to support them and if you're still concerned then you need to call this service

Option A can lead to a child having needs that are missed until school and then it's late intervention. Option B empowers the parents, educates them and let's them know where to follow up.

@LolaSmiles this is exactly it.

We should be actively educating people, not just fobbing off with soundbites to placate when their children are ultimately the ones who will suffer from being merely kept alive

I wonder where you are hearing that it does not matter how babies are fed? I was told quite clearly that breast is best. The benefits were exaggerated, I have since read the research.

And Sure Start did teach parents who needed it how to engage with their babies and children. That is what is needed. It was cut.

Agreed. The need to try and make everyone feel better about their choices, infuriates me. As you said- fed is not best, it's a basic requirement. Minimising the impact that breast milk has for fear of upsetting someone irritates me, and again that is as someone who tried and couldn't eventually.

@Annacondas
Instead of you can’t do anything to help babies meet their milestones - You can do certain activities to help promote a baby to do x, y and z but it’s not necessary, if you’d like to do it however here is a link to some videos showing you how (bare in mind the NHS already have a site with videos up purely showing parents activities and exercises to help babies crawl, roll etc.)
why do you think it’s better to meet milestones earlier and how on earth do you know when the child would have met them without your input? I agree that facts are better than silly phrases thought.

Anyone with difficulty in understanding what is meant by fed is best has no place having children imo

@TomeTome when did I say it was better to hit milestones early?

Facts are if a parent is worried about their child not meeting a milestone, instead of saying ‘don’t worry it all works out in the end’ they could be told that there are key activities and exercises they can do to help their child to meet them

@kitsuneghost well that’s an entirely different thread but I don’t disagree 💀

I don't know what help she thinks is out there for under 1s who aren't getting on well with solids that parents are ignorantly not accessing, but there is absolutely none unless the child is literally failing to thrive.

I think there is some oversimplified guidance, but that this cuts both ways and isn't just there to mollify. The risks of not preparing formula properly are massively overstated (very few other countries direct it to be done as we do), for instance, and I also think parents are given unnecessarily terrifying, rigid advice about safe sleep. I think a lot of maternal anxiety is caused this way and I don't agree that the overall message is overly permissive. I also think that you hear 'fed is best' a lot more from other mothers and online etc than you do from HCPs - I breastfed mine and I always felt almost uncomfortable about how full of praise HCPs were, it definitely didn't feel like a neutral stance. Same with my 'natural' births - it felt very clear that the midwives did, in fact, have views about the 'right' way to give birth.

@Annacondas as a matter of interest where and how do you see this extensive education taking place and what will fund it?

The information is available online in Ireland on HSE in UK NHS and then on many subsidiary websites.

Women are not going to be able to undertake a series of education events prior to delivery nor be able to engage when they have a baby.

With the best will in he world I really think you are naive about the capacity and availability individuals have.

I should probably have said “earlier” you seem to be under the impression that development is some sort of race and that you need to hit all the milestones at a prescribed moment and should be drilled to achieve that if not? My question was “WHY?”.

But that wouldn't be an evidence-based response - there is absolutely no evidence that there is a longer term benefit from this so you would just be wasting parental time, and almost certainly increasing anxiety, with this advice.

@Marblessolveeverything it won’t take resources to simply state facts instead of lies though.

In an ideal world those who can’t understand facts would get support to understand them, but at a basic level it wouldn’t take more resources to say a fact based piece of information instead of a platitude.

Our hospital trust offer free antenatal lessons before a first delivery. I see no reason that couldn’t be extended

@TomeTome you know what they say about making assumptions?

@Hardbackwriter there is a lot of support out there for under ones who have difficulties with feeding.

for some it can be a missed tongue tie, for others an issue with their gag reflex. She herself has many patients under one and there is treatment there. Unfortunately some parents believe the food under one saying and therefore don’t think there is an issue when there is one!

on a milder side people believe it and don’t worry about ensuring their child’s meals are as nutritious as they should be because it doesn’t matter.

You talk about parents being infantilised and stupid, but you are also perhaps deliberately misunderstanding these soundbites

Fed is best. FF babies will be fine. Breastfeeding is nutritionally better and this is quite well publicised, but fed is best means if you are struggling to Bf, if it puts the mothers mental or physical health into jeopardy or you cannot breast feed your child then it is better to FF your child. It is better your child is fed. It is a soundbite used to prioritise the mothers health and the human body is pretty resilient tbh.

You don't strike me as someone who is used to giving public health information. People don't take kindly to anything that is seen critically. These statements are designed to target people who are struggling, they are not aimed at people who are coping and capable of doing research.

@ThreeTreeHill i am not misunderstanding them

my issue is these soundbites are thrown around and then applied to many different situations, turning well meaning platitudes into potentially harmful advice.

I think it might be better when people are fed these lines for it to be made clear it’s advice for them and their situation not a blanket statement, as it might deter people from them saying it themselves to others.

But if there's no evidence to suggest meeting milestones early is of any benefit then it doesn't matter does it? It does work out in the end

What benefit is there to doing the activities? Apart from to be able to say the child met their milestone at the correct age, if it doesn't affect them in later life then it's perfectly reasonable to say don't worry

But ultimately fed is best. I think you are imagining more harm coming from these soundbites than actually does to make syourself feel superior

Babies have been fine for thousands of years with parents just following their instincts

Yeah, but 200 years ago an awful lot of them weren’t. If you read old records on the cause of death for many infants, you’ll see lots of explanations that make zero sense to us today, like ‘teeth’. And many of them were weaned on ’pap’ that makes Heinz baby jars look like gourmet health food. What this shows is that most healthy babies are resilient enough to tolerate less than optimal nutrition (there are exceptions of course).

Going back to the OP, I think what she is getting at is the inability of most health professionals to tailor their advice to the individual and to respond to individual needs. ‘Lowest common denominator’ advice can come across as patronising and demeaning, whether it’s ‘breast is best’, ‘fed is best’ or one word Ofsted gradings. (As an aside, a lot of the breastfeeding research quoted as gospel on here is of poor or questionable quality. Breast is best, but not by as much as you might think).

So OP belives that breast milk is best but chose not to do it and is now effectively berating hcp's for telling other mothers they don't have to do it?

You sound like you are very much in the very young child stage

Soon none of this will really matter to you.

As an aside I doubt many HCPs say that fed is best.

I think it’s just that there is such a wide variation in people and their circumstances being communicated to. You might be someone who is very level headed, calm, logical etc and maybe not affected by circumstances that make you extra sensitive to what is being communicated but the reality is not every person is like this. As a professional it’s a really fine balance between trying to sensitively communicate the truth, ensuring they are ‘informed’ but at the same time not alienating them which ends up being counter productive. Of course would love to just blurt out that smoking can double the risk of stillbirth and that in one study 95% of cot deaths occurred in a household with at least one smoker or that babies breastfed for 2 months were found to have half the risk of cot death. Yes absolutely think the message of years ago that just said to women that if they smoked their babies would be lighter was ridiculous as can totally see how women would of thought that’s not too bad if that’s the worst outcome 🤦🏻‍♀️ same as maybe focussing too much on e.g. breastfeeding and bonding as a key advantage, hey most mothers feel very bonded to their babies regardless. It is such a minefield but there is a lot of evidence about what actually works to support better outcomes, a good rapport with the care provider is key and definitely e.g the pros on breastfeeding appropriate when someone thinking about how to feed their baby but focus on practical support much better when someone in the trenches or just empathy and moral support if someone has got to the stage of deciding to switch to formula. At the end of the day people pay their taxes to be provided with what is hopefully something they experience as a positive service and hopefully through doing that we more effectively promote their health too