Has anyone complained about midwives or health visitors advice about breasfeeding or weaning, and if so what response did you get?

[rolandbrowning]

Just interested really as I recently complained about the midwives advising me to eat cream cakes to increase my milk supply. I was told the individual midwives involved had been spoken to and will be retrained. As so many people seem to get bad feeding and weaning advice, are they complaining and if so were you happy with the response? I am also now a bit worried that if i hav another baby, they may know it was me who complained about them!

[fedupandisolated]

To be fair I haven't actually heard any of the advice my colleague has given - just that she feels much more confident now with personal experience behind her.

Would agree that good training is important too though.

I was really lucky in being funded to attend a 3 day course last year - the type of training ALL HVs should be attending. They funded about 7 of us from about 30 in the area and we've been offered an annual update. In return we are supposed to disseminate the education and training around the area. Some HVs are plainly just not interested though.

[aquariusgirl]

I sympathise with all who have had bad or inappropriate advice from their MW or HV but some must have a good tale to tell about their situation and that the help given was good and worked for them. But it is your right to request another MW or HV if you dislike, mistrust or just would rather not be looked after by someome and as previously said if people don't complain and in writing nothing can improve. There are different bits of advice that work for different people. A probationer community midwife doesn't exist a midwife is a midwife. She may be new to the community and therefore insxperienced at aspects of the work. A probationer is a student so not qualified. Whatever she was she sounded dire to say the least

[rolandbrowning]

JustKeepSwimming, that's almost unbelievable. I was told that my son was lazy and that's why he wasn't getting enough milk. When i asked why he would starve himself if the milk was available, she said "He's a baby, he doesn't know"

fedupandisolated, I think what I find hard to believe is that they actually believe what they are saying. I accept that they have poor training, but why could I know they were talking rubbish through common sense but they didn't? It just comes across as they can't be bothered and don't really care if people breastfeed. In fact, one of them recommended I should use aptamil. She had obviously had the promotional literature.

[MoonlightMcKenzie]

My cousin is a mw that has taken her training much much further. In 7 years of mw education she has had one day on bfing!

[Turniphead1]

And then at the other end of the scale .... there are two fully qualified lactation consultant midwives at the hospital at which I had DC2 and am having DC3. And another who is a breastfeeding consultant. Out of a team of about 12. Fantastic.

Aquarius unsure of the status of the M/W. I was told she was new to the team and "on probation" but don't know what the means. Just know she didn't know her arse from her elbow.

[aquariusgirl]

rolandbrowning!!! No no don't know what sort of midwife you have had but many are quite passionate about getting breast feeding going and keeping it going. Some are just too busy and sadly too tired to put the time in. And some mothers there is only so much they will do and then give up bf.

[rolandbrowning]

aquariusgirl, I am being unfair. I didn't meet any of the passionate ones, but I am glad they exist. I am still breastfeeding, but still having to top up unfortunately. Hopefully the training will be given where it's needed after my complaint. I think I need to let it go now!!

[littlelamb]

My health visitors have been rubbish this time round- I never really bothered going with dd but ds has excema and I like to go to the baby clinic to check his weight (on 75 centile so no worries there ) and ask the health visitors if there's anything I can do to improve his skin. I have been told by three seperate health visitors that my diet has nothing to do with ds's skin, and that it's not worth trying to alter it at all. As soon as I cut back on dairy there was a huge improvement. Obviously this won't be the case with everyone whose dc has bad skin, but I was made to feel it was a silly question to even be asking. As well as that, my midwife advised me to give ds formula when he was 2 days old as he had been screaming all night and was 'obviously hungry'. I despair

[JustKeepSwimming]

roland - sorry was distracted by the DCs and bedtime last night.
i know, i was gobsmacked! she had loads of unhelpful comments:

• ds1 was lying on the floor looking sideways at something, she said 'does he always lie looking that way? does he ever turn his head to look the other way?'

cue first time mum freak out - something major must be wrong with him!!

• she too had her set regime for weaning, from 16wks i think, i just said, we'll see....

• when he was struggling with wind l said i was giving him infacol. when i mentioned about him feeding so often for so long, she said to offer him some boiled water instead. i queried this and said i thought the current bf advice was not to offer water, she said 'well, i can only tell you what to do, it's up to you to do it. you are happy to give him chemicals in infacol but not plain water!'

anyway, first i asked some other hvs at the bf group how i could go about changing hv, not wanting to rock the boat. when they asked why, and i said, they said they had heard similar stories from other mums. i thought hang on, if i was crap at my job i would either get fired or retrained, so why should she get away with it? and what if someone less stubborn/supported than me came along, they would def have struggled to keep bf following her advice.
so i rang the chief of hvs (title?) and spoke to her on the phone, repeated that i didn't want to rock the boat but just repeated her choice pieces of advice...
she went not long after...

her key failing i think was she didn't even know about the bf support group - so she couldn't even say 'i don't know much about bf, but go along to this group they are fab'.

sorry bit long!

[JustKeepSwimming]

oh, and one more thing!
i do believe experience helps, this crap hv had never had children of her own, so she had never experienced that middle of the night god awfulness of yet another feed/crying baby/sore boobs/dog-tiredness...
sure anyone who had would not recommend 2 hours of unnecessary crying in the middle of the night!

[rolandbrowning]

JustKeepSwimming, She sounds unbelivable. It just shows it is important to complain about bad advice. I feel better now!

One of the midwives who told me to eat cream cakes was actually running one of the breastfeeding support groups!! I think that she got a visit from the infant fedding co-ordinator when I complained so hopefully that was sorted out.

And yes it's so easy to give advice about other people's children when you haven't any of your own.

[mumof2222222222222222boys]

One health visitor recommended Watzits as a good finger food.
Once I heard that I never asked another thing!

[stretchmarkqueen]

My sis is currently doing her midwife course, she's in week 4 i think, but she's been doing loads on bf! She has knitted boobs and everything, so why aren't MW better?? I saw all her stuff, and bf is WELL covered.

[tiktok]

Baby Friendly UK now have a Baby Friendly education award for colleges training HPs, so maybe your sis is training somewhere that either has or is aiming to get the award

I am really in favour of mothers complaining. This is not only fair for the mothers that come later who may then not have the same rubbish advice, but in cases where the mum has misheard or misunderstood something, the HP then has a chance to reflect on and maybe change the way she puts info across.

[Snaf]

My university was the first to offer accredited Baby Friendly training - I have my certificate to prove it [proud]

But I agree that lots of mws/hvs have woeful knowledge. Hopefully the new cohorts coming trhough will be of a better standard, but bad practice/advice should always be complained about.

[VictorianSqualorSquelchNSquirm]

fedupandisolated, I wish I could be shocked at this statement.

I'm an ex-midwife and now a HV - as part of my HV education I had just one afternoon devoted to breastfeeding - half of which was taken up with the anatomy of the breast. Dreadful. For my co-students that had not been midwives it was just not enough - they were expected to learn "on the job" from HVs with the same appalling lack of training.

It terrifies me that so many people take the word of their HV as gospel when there is so little training going on. I've absolutely no training behind me whatsoever yet have known people who have had terrible advice from their HV and then got in contact with me to see if it's true. I mean FGs if you have to ask your friend with no training if you should listen to your Hv what kind of a mess is that?

[rolandbrowning]

Glad to hear that things will get better, the thing that concerns me is that I was told that the midwives in question have had up to date training, and have presumably chosen to ignore it. I don't know if this is true, it's hard to believe, but it makes me really angry and a bit bitter about them. The main thing is ds is now healthy and happy despite his difficult start.
.

[MoonlightMcKenzie]

VS I know exactly how you feel. I have often been worried about friends asking me for advice because I'm not qualified to give any, and am nervous about not knowing about or missing something vital.

But when I hear what they have been told I KNOW that my advice, - even if not spot on, is a million times better/more helpful. However, unless tis a very minor issue, I do try to encourage them to ring a helpline if just to have confirmed wot I said.

[noolia]

Slightly off topic, but my HV told me to eat more and she was right. Not so much to increases milk supply but more to keep my own energy up. If I hadn't been told to eat (and DH told to feed me!) I don't think I would have bothered to eat at all for the first 2 weeks! I really had to focus on eating and drinking enough.

[TinkerBellesMum]

Fortunately I've never had bad advice, but I know that's because two lovely, brilliant ladies a MW and HV have trained all my area and would go mad if they found out. The NN-MW did tell me to eat Mars Bars and biscuits and drink coke in the day but that's because it's the only thing I was managing to get in because I was tied to the sofa, she said (to paraphrase cause I can't remember the exact words from over two years ago) "Eat what you can get in, if that's mars, biscuits and coke at least you having something then eat properly when TBD gets home and can make you food or hold her while you do something".

[TinkerBellesMum]

My HV has been great, she's rather towards the AP side and trained in BF by the two ladies I mentioned. But when Tink was about 9 weeks she got to 6lb 2oz and stopped. For 4 weeks her weigh-in was 6lb 2oz. One week she was stressing about it and while she was telling me how bad it was and we needed to do something about it, I was feeding Tink. She had about half an hour then HV said "I don't normally do this but put her back on the scales and we'll see what she's taken" Put her on and she's 6lb 4oz. Just as she's saying this is good, means she's taken something, Tink wees so HV resets the scale and weighs her again, she's now 6lb 2oz! Eventually after four weeks she tells me to add formula in. With no one IRL and no PC I didn't have any support to not top up.

I did for a week, not as much as she wanted me to and she gained quite a bit. I was so upset by this advice though that I called the NN-MWs for help. They got me to see the paed and he was great, at the hospital she was being tracked on a premature BF chart and that looked a lot healthier than the red book! He said she was great and obviously following her line, but he got me to see those ladies I mentioned. They were also great, they said she was doing fine (as she was sitting on my knee, watching them and nodding as they were talking, they struggled to talk to me because she made them laugh) and I had milk running down my top so supply wasn't an issue! They got me on what I call the body building diet so that they could get the HV off my back. She gained the weight back but I wasn't able to get her off the formula top ups until about a week before she was 6 months.

Next time I go to the group as soon as we get home from hospital and take their advice first, if HV is worried I'll say "Bea's happy"!

[YummyMam]

I complained about the breastfeeding 'advice' I'd had from hospital and community midwives. It was generally appalling, and if it hadn't been for the intervention of a fantastic HV and BFC, i would have had to stop BF as DD wasn't putting on weight. The BFC actually asked me to write an officail complaint when I told her about the advice I'd been given. (Including being told to just get the baby onto the breast somehow, even if she was screaming).

I had a very good and personal reply from the Head of midwifery. She apologised for the problems I'd had, and gave details about all the new training that was being put in place. I do think it's really important to complain, as otherwise how do the people in a position to change things know that anything needs changing?

[WheresTheAuPair]

My friend is a BF specialist in our local hospital and it drives her to despair to hear midwives saying to mothers that they have 'funny' or the 'wrong shaped nipples' to BF...also that big boobs or flat nipples are a reason to stop BFing. Surely the last thing you want to hear when you are struggling with getting to grips with BFing!

[JustKeepSwimming]

One lovely midwife told me 'to eat like it's Christmas'! which i loved but i knew what she meant, so dh was v good about keeping the fridge/cupboards stocked full of quick calorific foods.

the (awful) HV explained to me once that there was more nutritional benefit in a banana than a biscuit - no, really???

But as others have said, when you feel pinned to the sofa all day feeding, anything is better than nothing and it's important to adjust your eating habits and not stress about losing weight straight away which i think is was was meant.

[JustKeepSwimming]

Again and again I hear people in their birth stories talk about the midwives in hospital 'helping' them out, especially at night time with formula top-ups
So by the time they come home, the supply/demand chain has been broken. I know some people might not be that fussed if they bf or not, but surely NHS staff should not be doing this?