experiences with health visitors?

[moomin35]

What have yours been like?

Mine have all been lovely except one. (Live in city so you always get a different one)

My favourite one told me to go on Mumsnet. [winks]

Flipflop please don't worry, I think people post more about bad experiences.

I had 2 brilliant HVs.

First one was fab and super supportive when I was struggling bfing dc1. And generally helpful to a slightly clueless new mum with a high needs kind of baby.

Second one was great at sorting out dc2's reflux and very, very supportive when I had PND. Also very sensible with dc3's late walking.

Both worked well with the GPs too.

Our current HV is lovely and had been invaluable in finding help for one of my children who has additional needs. Having said that, if I had paid any attention to her breastfeeding advice my youngest would have ended up on formula within a month. It makes me wonder how many other mom's in her area have failed at breastfeeding because they think she is a professional and can be trusted!

The thing is though Yuruba we offer a universal service. People needing extra support come from all walks of life so the universal programme is designed to reflect that. If we only offered visits to first time parents or young parents we'd be accused of being discriminatory, we can't win!

DD's HV was patronising and missed DD's tongue-tie (picked up two weeks after birth by a lovely HV) and blamed me for her bad latching. Then, after I gave up breastfeeding and started DD on formula (advised by GP due to my mental exhaustion from stress about feeding) at six weeks the patronising HV made me cry by scolding me for giving up.

DS's HV was lovely. I only saw her once at home and she weighed and measured him and said to come in if/when I needed to. Not a patronising word about us FF him or anything else.

It depends on who you get. I'm sure most HV's are angels but you only ever really hear about the bad ones.

The HV who came to visit me was fine. I'd had a complicated birth and a rocky start with breastfeeding. She mostly seemed to be checking that I was ok and not post natally depressed or traumatised, and when she had established that I was fine then that was that really. She had a little bit of ongoing involvement whilst I got back to 100% breastfeeding and my ds's weight gain stabilised. I think I saw her about 4 times altogether.

The one I saw at my ds's 1 year check was slightly surprised I was breastfeeding, but other than that was competent and friendly.

I'm glad that there is the HV service, not for me necessarily, but for those new parents that need the support.

Actual, qualified health visitors: all the ones I've had any dealings with have been great and very helpful.

However, it took me about 5 months to realise with DC1 that the people I kept speaking to at the clinic were not HVs at all, they were nursery nurses. And they were largely rubbish, with unhelpful, often outdated generic advice and (one in particular) some bloody unhelpful views about breastfeeding.

The nursery nurses never let on that they weren't HVs and in fact kind of led you on to believe that they were. Unfortunately they patently didn't have the education or knowledge to help with anything even slightly out of the ordinary.

I do wonder how many of the HV-hating posts on MN are actually directed at nursery nurses and not HVs at all...

I had a locum hv when ds1 was tiny, she only visited once for about 10/15 minutes, ds2 arrived and the hv i have now encountered are fabulous, in our area virgin care have taken over the service, i'm not sure if this was the change but i genuinely feel i could call any of them withal problem and i would get help and support. So yes, my experiences are now good!

I agree totally with weaknesseskern above, with ds1 there was a nursery nurse who would glibly give out bad advice on all sorts of health related matters, in my opinion there were things she said which she really should have referred to a hv but was probably too proud to admit she wasn't health trained! I am see nursery nurses have their place but they shouldn't pass themselves off as hv or offer advice in areas which they are not trained!

First baby - saw HV at appropiate intervals. When i had trouble with getting DD to sleep in the evening, she suggested i sit her in front of the television to see if it helped

Second baby (4 years later) - different HV who i met once before i had DS. When the midwife discharged me she was to hear i hadn't heard from HV since the birth and i got a PHONE CALL later the same day. I never actually saw her again despite struggling through the first year

Ours have all been pleasant and helpful, though DD has never needed anything, so that makes things easier. The nursery nurses have never given the impression of being HVs. We haven't seen much of them, though I did get DD weighed a bit when she was really little as I do love a graph.

Mine wrote me out a 4 hourly feeding schedule for borderline failure to thrive dd, which involved feeding from one breast only for 10 mins at a time. Every 4 hours. Dd was less than a month old and less than 7lbs in weight .
Thankfully I had read enough to know how dangerous this was and ignored her.

I think that many people on mumsnet are very experienced and knowledgeable parents, who seem to take it as a personal slight if a HV dares to speak to them or even offer them advice. There are some parents out there though who are not as knowledgeable, or who may not find it as easy to access information and services, and these parents can really benefit from the assistance of a HV. Not all HV's are crap and not all advocate weaning at 4 weeks and leaving newborns at the bottom of the garden to cry. If you don't need any help, just say no thanks, I can never really understand why people on here are apparently so offended by HVs. Weird.

My Health Visitors have been fantastic. A great source of support after my difficult birth with ds1 and pnd/ptsd. I'm a nurse and actually thinking of training as a HV, and yes courses are at MSc level.

I've been given advice at times that I chose not to follow re: co-sleeping, night weaning and sleep training but I think it was offered in good faith, wouldn't cross my mind to be offended by someone giving me advice I don't agree with.

My HV was brilliant she was very supportive and made more regular visits after I was diagnosed with postnatal depression. I think it's like any job you get people who think they know it all and others who are very helpful and supportive

I've had 3, they were all fine.

tbh I think you have to manage them - why ask questions if you already know the answer? . Tell them what you're doing and ask questions only if you want advice. Don't say 'is it a good idea to stop breastfeeding?' for example and then be surprised when they trot out the current advice.

Mine have all been brilliant. With my eldest the hv was the one who really helped the most with getting him his asd diagnosis. She also spotted that he had a speech delay and got him a speech therapy referral. I had different ones for each child. For my youngest the hv was really helpful when we had feeding problems and got us referrals to salt and a dietician. The hv also spotted a slight squint at our 1 year check which led to a referral to the eye clinic and dd getting glasses which actually prevented her from having to have eye surgery due to it being picked up so early.
I'm very grateful to the hv service :-)

I've seen several and they have all been excellent apart from one who was just ok. I found her manner a bit strident and she was quite overbearing, but she was lovely about DS at his 2yr check so I forgave her

Interesting that there have been comments about HVs who don’t have children lacking relevant experience. I think HV’s who have had children can be equally problematic as they bring their own child rearing experiences to bear and this can influence the advice they give (completely natural). A good HV will obviously know that every child is different and advise accordingly.

I do think they need to think about allocating more time and resources to mums who need the support.

Our HV visited and spent 2 hours with us. She had covered everything she needed to in the first 30 mins or so and spent the remaining time covering old ground with text book advice which she recited verbatim (“don’t co-sleep if you are drunk or have taken drugs”)

I don’t think I’m a know it all when it comes to babies but a lot of the advice was simple common sense. She was a lovely woman. I just thought that there might have been a mum out there in need of some lengthy one on one advice/support and who would have benefited from her time more.

The best sources of advice I’ve received have been from other mums whose kids have experienced whatever issue my child has been affected by. It might not be ‘by the book’ but a lot of the time it has worked.

Fine. But she was a friend and former colleague.... She did get DD onto the 'windy baby' massage course that is very sought-after in our area, and praised her development making me feel good

Our HV has been very supportive since DS was born 3 yrs ago. She has helped me through PND, DS failing to thrive and going to hospital, referring to dietician for dairy/soya free diet (bigness ever annoyance), current potty training nightmare disaster. She is available on the phone and always rings back. Our GP is amazing too.

I guess I 'm a bit biased cos my husband and are both medics and therefore supportive of our peers but she has been good. I don't think there is much actual knowledge she can impart to us (both having worked as GPs but now in other specialties) but support is valuable and she has an hour for me when she has visited rather than the gp's 10mins.

Mine was awful - my daughter had cleft lip, but she constantly talked about her "cleft palate" - which she didn't have. I corrected her everytime she mentioned it, and she still didn't get it right. She also berated me for not breast feeding, despite the fact that my daughter was unable to breast feed due to her cleft .... I made a complaint and never went back.