Can you opt out of baby weight checks?

[floppops]

About to start trying to get pregnant with what will be our second child and was wondering about this today.
Is it possible to opt out of post natal care and the baby weigh ins? I would obviously consent to all the vaccinations and hearing tests etc. But would really rather not have to go to the many weigh in appointments this time.
With my first DD I had awful prenatal, maternity and postnatal care. Really could go on about that for ever so..
This time we are thinking of having a independent midwife so hopefully won't need the NHS prenatal and postnatal checks.
With my DD I was asked to go to the baby clinic 2 days after her birth as they couldn't come to me. This was in the snow and whilst I was suffering still from a difficult birth with hemorrhaging. Then at the one week weigh in (at home) I was told I had to go to hospital immediately as DD had lost too much weight-my milk was late to come in..they then said I wasn't allowed to leave the hospital and basically forced me to stay up for 24 hours monitoring her feeds. Was a total nightmare. We did complain as one of the nurses threatened me that I could be forced to stay " was that what I wanted?" was quite frightening. So they let us go home the next day.
Anyway DD was and is fine, just a couple of days behind with the weight issue.
Subsequent trips to the health centre to have DD weighed were just really stressful-hours of waiting for a 5 minute check. Was also thinking of getting an infant weighing scale to monitor at home.
Has anyone opted out? Did they let you? I'm worried they would threaten me with social services intervention..

flop I'm really interested in your question, because the exact same thing happened to me.

DD was (and at 15 months still is) in the 98th percentile for height and weight but lost a lot of weight in the first 5 days (now we know it was a lot of fluid) and my experience was horrible.

They made me stay overnight and force feed my baby every 2 hours (I had loads of milk and she was feeding well) just to weigh her the next day and discharge me. I hated the whole thing.

Very interested in answers.

Opting out of immediate postnatal care would be very unusual and would quite possibly trigger a referral to ss as although you can theoretically do this it will make the hcps very nervous.

There is no need to ever see your hv et, no need to have further checks if you think all is well but the early mw checks and weigh ins do pick up problems. Ordinarily this would only be two weigh ins.

You could find decent local feeding support so you have someone well equipped to help you if you have problems.

I didn't have any post natal care after the initial 2 midwife visits. So presumably you can? Ds is 4 and there's never been any contact

My DS is 16 months and hasn't been seen by a HV since 14 weeks, at my clinic the weigh in every Wednesday but I really don't feel the need to go, so long as he's eating well that's fine by me. Tho I'm quite surprised I've not had any app's for development checks.

Dd was weighed at birth, before midwife discharge and again at 8 weeks. That was it. I didn't make a big deal of it I just didn't go to the clinics.

i have 3 kids, all of whom were seen once by the community HV i think, about a week after birth. didn't bother with any of the weighing etc, it's not compulsory, and nobody ever phoned to ask me why i wasn't going.

and when i tried to leave hospital with ds2, having been waiting all day to be discharged, the midwives said i couldn't leave because they hadn't filled out the paperwork... i said i was going and they got security to stop me. i called the police. joy! but of course it's all rubbish, they can't force you to do anything.

You can opt out of pn care with a mw but this is unusual. If you stay with the NHS, write to the Supervisor of midwives at your local unit, explaining why it caused so much stress last time and ask if it would be possible to have a more supportive service this time. For example if you could see the same mw, and if you could be seen at home in the first week.

If you have an independent mw, she will be able to do all your routine postnatal care, which includes weighing where appropriate. This is usually done at home.

MW pn care lasts for a minimum of 10 days to a usual maximum of 28 days. Most keep seeing you until baby is appearing to be thriving, usually when they are over birthweight.

After that you are invited to attend weigh-ins at baby clinic with the HV service. MY local HVs recommend weighing no more than once a month. You do not have to go, it is a service not a duty.

"If you have an independent mw, she will be able to do all your routine postnatal care, which includes weighing where appropriate."

So presumably you wouldn't need to double up with HV's services?

Don't think the feeding was such an issue-it was that my milk was late coming in-was 5/6 days. Ended up feeding DD till she was 21 months very happily.
An independent midwife does postnatal checks for 6 weeks so wouldn't need NHS postnatal checks.
Just really wondering if anyone knows whether we do have a right to a choose..without being threatened with social services.

Mrsravel how supportive- being forced to stay by security guards because they haven't filled a form in..It really is scary crazy..good for you for going! I wish I had.

IME the MW/HV were far less, hmmm, interested in both DS & I as he was #2. They weighed him when they came to see me, but they actually only visited a couple of times - I seem to think it was fewer times than with DD, but equally, local policy could have changed, even in 2.5yrs. Thankfully he didn't lose weight, but I was prepared for a 'fight' after DD gained relatively slowly in the first few wks & I "had" to take her for checks every few days. She was, & is still, despite being on the 50-75th centiles, a skinny thing.

I took DS once a month for a weigh-in, purely to satisfy the grandparents asking "so how much does he weigh now then?" and will do it once every 2 now he's over 6mths. I don't think you have to have your child weighed once you & they are discharged.

If I had another smaller baby who gained at the lower end of 'normal', I'd arm myself with my facts about breastfed babies & gains/losses, & effectively ignore so-called advice, unless I had concerns. I also found my milk came in quicker this time (by day 2 I think!!) so you might find the same?

Hth, good luck.

I have a medical condition which causes low milk supply and my first baby had very slow weight gain. (My condition was undiagnosed at the time.) The midwives were supportive but once discharged I faced what I can only describe as ill-informed bullying from the HVs. This time around I knew there might be problems with weight but had no intention of exposing my baby to the HVs. No one will ask questions if you don't turn up, particularly with a second baby. I am getting support and advice from NHS lactation consultants at local breastfeeding clinics. They are also weighing my baby, and are brilliant.

If you have independent mw care for immediate postnstal care you can just opt out of hv care. You are just choosing not to use their service, shouldn't be an issue.

you are not obliged to have your baby weighed.....

you do not have to do anything....

it may make health proffessionals worry, and it may end up being more stressful as a result BUT you dont have to do anything at all..... and so long as baby is not being abused etc etc or starved or something i cant see SS would be able to do anything either.

No law has been passed that requires babies to be weighed at certain intervals

I find this thread worrying. The idea is consent is given freely and women are clearly worried and giving consent under duress being they think they will be threatened with SS. If this is being done on such a wide spread scale its totally unethical and totally outside what midwives can and should be doing. Its actually down to women to start challenging that unfortunately, however tough it is...

Just to let you know that independent midwives can no longer practice from October this year because it will become illegal not to have insurance so that might scupper your plans a bit.
Once the midwife has signed you over to Hv care you can tell them not to come round if you don't wish to see them. Say you will go to baby clinic to get baby weighed and then don't go. They can't make you.
I'm not gonna bother so much this time as Ill have a 4 year old and quite frankly can't be arsed.

I don't know about the OP, but my question was really about the midwife weight checks in the first week, no so much the subsequent ones (I just skipped them and bought my own baby scales)

They seem to have a protocol in place about percentage of weight loss and are inflexible about it, which I understand to a degree, but being forced to stay in the hospital overnight force feeding a BF baby, even after bloods come back ok sounds crazy to me.

I'm pregnant again and in the same scenario I'd like to think I'd have the mental strength to fight back and refuse to be admitted.

Just to had, the Paed pressure to top-up with formula was pretty full on and I opted to express for unnecessary top-ups but it took me weeks to reestablish breastfeeding properly, as DD got used to drinking from a tiny cup.

PoppyAmex i told them "my baby was not a cow and wouldnt be drinking cow milk".... it got them off my back as she dropped slowly from almost 75th to almost 9th centile.....

I was BFing.... she fed loads, AND i dripped at least a pint a day in the early stages... (and donated most of this spare milk to SCBU)
she was happy and content and had lots of wet nappies and a normal amount of dirty nappies for a BF baby....

That was good enough for me.... and she is / was fine. now 21m

Id had her at home (quickly and easily with no pain relief) and was certainly not going to go to hospital when my mummy instinct knew there really was nothing wrong.

I also told them "If i was a cavewomen I would have no reason to worry" and refused to worry.

I had a friend whose baby was 36 hours older than mine (lived a long way away).... our babies weighed the same at every weigh in (done the same day) for months..... she was under so much pressure and told she had to top up etc etc... where as me and my assertive self got left too it, and was not pestered so much!

I think it sounds like you might benefit from finding good bf support locally so you don't have to rely only on a paediatrician. Paeds don't have the skill set to differentiate between babies with transfer issues, mums with low supply etc. having someone who can do this often gives you a better eat meant plan which for you last time may well have been to feed directly from the breast maybe with some changes to p and a, using switch nursing etc

Different areas set weightloss admissions at fractionally different percentages but the cautious criteria is because no one, not mothers, not pads, not mws can guess which babies are in trouble. Appearance can be very deceptive when compared to blood work and the consequence can be brain damage or death if this is missed. Weighing can be a positive and helpful part of bf assessment and also of baby's health assessment.

As for cow milk nannyl, it saves lives too. Agreed it can be pushed unnecessarily but it bfc can go wrong for some babies.

Soupa I'm not a "your baby, your rules" type of person and I'm actually a big apologist of trusting the qualified experts, so I understand that these protocols are in place for very good reasons.

But when the blood work comes back clean and the baby isn't dehydrated there's absolutely no reason to admit a woman and disrupt the feeding and bonding process.

In my case, the consultant later recognised it was a case of "catch-down growth" and DD eventually settled in the 98th percentile, but it was such a travesti that the post-natal midwives advised me to BF right before the weigh-in so they were able to discharge me.

Anyway, I'm sorry to highjack your thread with my experience OP.

Sorry, forgot to add that I had GD so DD was born looking like a sumo-wrestler with very obvious fluid retention.

I just wish I didn't have to stress about this with my 2nd pregnancy.

It sounds like you had a really similar experience as us poppy. I too was pushed into giving tiny cups of formula and that really worried me at the time. Prob wouldn't be that fussed now about that.. I also was forced to try to express several times when readmitted to hospital-never worked for me. I never did manage to express..always had milk for DD though. Expressing didn't work even if I held DD whilst trying. Everyone's different I guess.
Ninja I didn't know independent midwives wouldn't be able to work any longer this year...is there any other option aside from NHS for home births?

I had an IM and didn't see a midwife postnatally ever, after three pregnancies, including twins. The IM did the heel prick test and weighed them when I wanted. She did not discharge me until they were all feeding well and the weight gain was good - for my first that meant it took 7/8 weeks.
I did still have to trek to the GPs for the new baby check, which wasn't great.

It wasn't an issue of 'opting out', no one came round and I was just forgotten about.

I suggest that when you engage your IM you discuss the post natal care and they will reassure you that you won't have to go through what you went through last time.