Health visitor before baby's born?

[Freckleyou20]

Wondering if anyone knows why this is happening? I just received a letter saying the health visitor wants to do a home visit in September for my ds2 due in October. I had ds1 last December so not long ago at all and didn't have anything like this then and it's really confused me

I had a letter with both DC. I declined the visit and said I didn’t feel I needed it until after baby was born.

@Snailsetssail Yeah that's what I'm half tempted to do, I can't see what there would even be to talk about because the baby isn't here yet. It just seems a bit pointless really, when they could be doing home visits for people that have just given birth and do actually need it

I had DS in December 2017 and the HV came out before he was born, it's standard in our area so expecting it again this time.
It was fine, was nice to meet her and just have a general chat about things. She did a home check too and asked to see where baby would be sleeping. I wouldn't class it as an essential visit but certainly didn't offend me. I'll do the same this time.

They probably just want to check you're up to date on safe sleep advice and know about the benefits of breastfeeding (would be nice if they gave details of local support groups!)

I had DS last December and the health visitor came to chat, introduce herself, and give us some information etc before he was born. I thought it was lovely as it allowed me to put a face to her name and gave me the opportunity to ask any last minute questions.

An antenatal visit is a routine part of the healthy child programme. The prgramme outlines a certain set of visits that all families should get from pregnancy through to 5, and in an ideal world there would be a consistent HV delivering all the visits to a family in order to maintain consistency of care.

Unfortunately, in most areas now there isn't the resources to be able to deliver the antenatal visit, but they are really valuable and it's an opportunity to build that relationship and for the HV to get a sense of how you are before you have your baby. There's also lots of information that you might be in a better place to absorb and think about now rather than before your baby is born.

The good thing about the health visiting service is that it's not statutory, so you can just decline the visit if you don't want it

That should read 'after the baby is born' not before 🤦🏻‍♀️

I had this with ds in 2016. She wanted to introduce herself, check about healthy eating, make sure I was safe from Dv, drug user etc. I think it’s a way of pre-empting potential problem families or at risk babies/children. She made sure I had access to support I wanted, antinatel classes etc. I’m assuming that if they believed I was at risk, their involvement would have been different. As it was I didn’t have anything to do with them until ds was born and only for the normal appointments. She was here for about 20 mins at most.

Thank you ladies! Sounds like I'm worrying for no reason, nice to hear it's a routine type of thing. Makes me super anxious people coming out to my house, feel like they're just gunna judge my decorating or something stupid lol

It's standard where I live, apparently it's because they want to be sure you know the safe sleep guidelines before the first night at home with the baby. It's also nice to do introductions before hand, so you have a family face, after all the different midwives/ health care people you in hospital.