Health visitor is a waste of time

[WhenSunnyGetsBlue]

A need a little rant.

I'm getting seriously wound up by my health visitor. I see absolutely no point in going to the appointments, she is completely incompetent.

The centre is a 40 minute walk away, so it takes a fair amount of effort to get there and back. It started when my daughter was 5 days old and I had to walk to the appointment with my stitches. I mean surely it's in the name Health 'visitor'.

At every appointment she has been useless with broken English. I find her incredibly patronising. She takes phonecalls during appointments, and is generally rude and judgy in my opinion.

I got a phonecall from her yesterday saying, "you've missed your appointment again" in a condescending voice. (For ref, the first appointment she cancelled, not me). I asked her what appointment. She hadn't notified me, no text, no letter. Nothing. She then said I had to attend an appointment today at 1pm (less than 24 h notice).

I know it's a little thing, but I really can't wait until we don't have to see her any more. What are other people's experiences? Am I being oversensitive? Anyway....I better wake my baby up from her nap to go this appointment now otherwise we will be in trouble for being late!

Do they have concerns about your baby what are they saying about your parenting? Most offer information about vitamins its not lecturing.

Oh no! Not a...note!

You don't have to go, I really wouldn't wake the baby up for it unless you have actual concerns you want to discuss.
Lived in two different areas with my 2 DC and both HVs did home visits the first couple of times, so until baby was around 6 weeks. Then you just went to the drop in session at the clinic when you wanted to or phoned if you had any concerns. They only did formal appointments for milestone checks.
Mine were both helpful actually, yours sounds rubbish.

Sack it off. Tell them you don't need any further contact, and you'll let them know if you do need support.

Our HVs were a total waste of space and gave awful advice (like give juice instead of breast milk to a 10 month old!). I just opted out. There is nothing they can do (assuming you aren't under social services care - I have no idea if perhaps in that situation you do have to see the HV). Hopefully they are helpful to some people.

Was the vitamin advice about Vitamin D?

Nobody. Will. Care.

Do you really think that they don’t have any more pressing issues to deal with? OP (who has already had more than enough visits) is the least of their concerns

I didn't know that it was optional. I had my birth privately and my dc was treated by private doctors but I thought you had to also do the HV.
Agree that they are a complete and utter waste of time. Never came at the agreed time and always at the time the baby was asleep. Also utterly useful information, nothing you couldn't Google yourself. Also came with out of date scale and just stupid annoying questions. It was almost to the end that I realised that it was optional.

In small defence of the HV system, they aren't really there to support women who are coping well and who have thriving babies. They are there to try to identify women who aren't coping and whose babies aren't thriving. Not everyone is able to search the internet and find appropriate information, and not everyone knows the "obvious" information that most would.

I had difficult births and time in hospital with both of my babies, the kind of experiences that could easily be traumatic and increase the risk of PND/PTSD and so on. It was entirely appropriate that the midwives and then the HV after that asked questions and checked that we were all ok. We were signed off from home visits from the HV after 2 or 3 appointments, once they were happy that there were no major issues with either me or the babies.

When my son was born he was seriously ill. Once he recovered he put on a fair amount of weight and was very much a chubby baby. I went to the HV to have him weighed regularly and she started lecturing me about childhood obesity - he was only a couple of months old!!! I never went back. For reference, he is now 19, 6ft2 and thin as a rake!

I didn't know you could decline until I was pregnant with my second. I had PTSD after horrible treatment having my first baby but it wasn't picked up nor checked. I didn't know as a FTM that it wasn’t a normal feeling. That was the only time I needed a HV but they didn't help me. So I wasn't bothered about a HV with my other three as I didn't need them.

Health visiting is not a mandatory service; engagement with it is entirely optional and the parents choice.

Yes there are good health visitors, worth their weight in gold out there, but there are also an awful lot of very poor health visitors who seem happy to lie to parents about their place in the healthcare system and that parents can decline their services.

In our case, we had a health visitor say she thought there was something wrong with one of our premature twins because he wasn’t smiling at his 6 week check - despite the fact he would only have been 5 days old had he been born on his due date and not 6 weeks prematurely, and no one would have been expecting a week old baby to be smiling spontaneously. Then, when they were 13 weeks actual (7 weeks corrected), she was ringing me wanting to do a 3-4 month developmental check even though no such thing exists in the red book in our area and despite me reminding her that developmental checks should be done based on corrected age not actual age. When she then tried to tell me that, if I refused her visits, she would “flag up” that I was refusing medical input for my children I asked who she was going to tell - which she couldn’t answer; and told her she was not welcome in our home in future and, if I had any concerns about either of the twins, I would seek appropriate medical advice but wouldn’t engage with a voluntary service who seem to have such little regard for the families they should be supporting. 4 1/2 years later we have not seen an HV since then.

My son is 8 weeks old. We saw our health visitor when he was 10 days old and last week at 7 weeks. She came to our home and also said she won't see us again until between 8 to 10 months unless I need her.

You shouldn't need that many appointments unless she has concerns, what on earth do you talk about? Lol

Seems to be a mumsbet thing to hate health visitors. Hope the appointment went well.

The appointment went as expected. It lasted no more than 10 minutes (which was mostly me dressing and undressing my baby. She weighed her and tried to measure her height. She said that she is gaining weight faster than normal and asked me what I was feeding her. I said she was EBF and that was that. Next question was:

"do you have a cot for your baby"
'yes, I still have a cot'
"because you know about SIDs..."
"Yes, I do"

Final point was your baby "should be wearing socks." ...

I then said this would be my last appointment.
She said "Can I ask why?"
I said because my baby is doing fine, and they are unnecessary.

It wasn't fun at all. If she did make any important 'notes' they were probably something like "mother is covered in sick and looks like she hasn't showered for a week, baby clean, smiling and smells like fairy non-bio".

Sounds like you've got an awful one they aren't all like this

Mine came to the house both times. The second child she didn't need to as she'd changed roles but she recognised my name and wanted to come along. This was early 2021 so still COVID times. Then late 2021 when I was diagnosed with cancer she must have had an alert from the community nurses or something. She rang me out of the blue and asked if she could help with anything, at the time the kids were 2 1/2 and 6 months old. We moved away a year later and then I got a condescending one who told me my two year old would be overweight when he started school and did I know what was an appropriate portion size. Bearing in mind I'm a size 10 and my eldest child is sat on the 50th centile for height and weight. I was glad he wasn't my first child. For context he was born above the 99th centile, he's now sat around 75th and fits in clothes for his age.

I only have 2 children but I went through 5 or 6 health visitors over the years and my clinic location changed too. I only liked one of them. They were useful for referals as both my kids needed SLT and OT but that was it really.

@WhenSunnyGetsBlue OP how many home visits have you had to the house by your midwife, not your health visitor??

@WhenSunnyGetsBlue I actually threw a health visitor out of my house and that was before I had my first baby! she was a cheeky bint!

@WhenSunnyGetsBlue that sounds like a perfectly normal appointment.
All my appointments were "drop in at the clinic "ones (you just turned up if you wanted to) - but pretty much that's what they were.
Not a terrible appointment.
She said your baby was gaining weight quicker than expected- did you actually ask anything back? Like should you feed less? Cut down on breast milk and start adding solids.
The question about a cot doesn't sound awful.
Some people might say "oh we are still using a moses basket" so the HV can give advice on changing to a cot.
What did she say about the socks? What did you say back. My girl could pull her off at 5 months and I would have said something about "well we start off the day with them".
To be honest it sounds like you went to the appointment wanting it to be bad but it just sounds like a perfectly ordinary normal appointment to me.
Oh well.
You don't have to go back if you don't want to - but remember. The HV team is there if you do need them. They aren't the enemy.

@allthemiddlechildrenoftheworld I am actually curious what awful things the HV did to annoy you.
"bint" is quite a horrible word for someone just doing their job.

@WhenSunnyGetsBlue that sounds like a normal run of the mill appointment and nothing untoward seemed to.have been said. I don't really know why you are feeling so hostile towards it ?

Hi OP, they must have some concern or reason for you to have had 5 appointments in 3 months, do you know what that is?

My baby is 6 weeks old now and the health visitor attended once at around 2 weeks and then last week for her 6 week one, the next one isn’t until she is 9 months old, I was shocked it was so far away and she said they only see more frequently if they have concerns or if parents have asked for extra support. So for there to be 5 before 3 months there has to be some reason as it’s not standard, may be worth finding out from them what the reason is? Only because if they have concerns and you then cancel/refuse appointments it may trigger a referral.

Terrible advice to cut down on breastfeeding a 3m old! Or to add solids 😂

@allthemiddlechildrenoftheworld I had 1 visit from the midwife and 0 from the health visitor. I have had to go to all the appointments in person in different places. Injections in the GP surgery, Midwife in a different GP surgery 40 min walk away and HV in a nursery which is 40 mins in the other direction. All of them have been completely unnecessary except for the injections of course and perhaps the first weigh in with the midwife. I don't mind the distance if it's worthwhile but it just seems ridiculous to be doing 1 hour 20 minutes walking with a newborn for a 10 minute appointment. Also, just to say my maternity care was absolutely fantastic. I had a brilliant midwife but after I had my baby, I got put under the care of a different health team (I'm in London) and it has been shockingly bad. I'm very lucky that I have a great GP surgery - any issues and they would be my first point of call. I just don't understand the point of health visitors, because if there are any issues it seems all they can do is refer you.