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..

It looks like I won't be able to go down this route though if IMs won't be available anymore

They have been under threat for years now though, it all still seems to rumble on. And even if they didn't get any insurance deals sorted and they were not any around able to midwife at your birth, I wonder if you would still be able find midwives to do private post natal care.

Ims have a problem over insurance for births, not an or pn care. Although october is a deadline, they have been told by the health dept not to stop caring for their clients?.sounds like work is going on.

"I had an IM and didn't see a midwife postnatally ever, after three pregnancies, including twins. " IMs ARE MWs. It doesn't matter whether NHS or private so long as they are registered.

As far as I know you pretty much have to have the postnatal MW visits and the new baby check (and really you want to, right?) but other than that it's all voluntary.

see if one to one midwives cover your area yet....

the new way for independant midwives to work legally while the NHS pay

one to one midwives

Just to pick up on a couple of things.

You can still use I.Ms after autumn legally, just not for the actual delivery of the baby.

One to One is not offering the same care as an I.M would really, as I.Ms can be chosen by high risk women (older, younger, late, early, big, small, VBAC, Twins, Breech etc). As far as I understand no support will be offered in a one to one capacity to "high risk" mums through either Neighborhood Midwives or One to One. Read this in the Guardian a while back, but please, somebody correct me!?

You can decline anything you like. The tests (yours and baby), vaccines, weighing and check ups are all offered. If they are offered, then implicitly, they can also be declined.

I chose some blood tests, but declined others. I chose to accept first initial weigh for curiosity, but only after a good old bond and only when I was going to be putting baby down anyway whilst I showered. After that, my I.Ms offered weighs and tests over the next 4 weeks and discussed any concerns I had, supporting me recovering from birth and establishing a breastfeeding relationship. I was signed off by my I.M and became then passed to the HV, who I sometimes visit for the book bundles! I don't want strangers in the house so go to a clinic for this.

Hope this helps.

i have spoken to 2 one 2 one midwives this past 2 weeks or so.... they started in my area when i was nearly 36 weeks so am staying NHS.

anyway they were both completely supportive of homebirth before 37 weeks and after 42 weeks.
at that time there was just a small question of baby being breech, this didnt phase either if them, and they both mentioned they have are happy to deliver breech / would do twins too.

as practising IMs they probably have more experience supporting "non low risk" women than many NHS, where the pressure to be in hospital is much greater.

i am booked for an NHS homebirth (as both midwives are really quite far away and i didnt realise i was in labour until transition, 12mins before DD was born last time, but will switch to one 2 one for post natal care)

anyway both midwives were not at all phased by the potential "non low risk" situations that we discussed, and it was clear they could and would fully support them.

in passing i mentioned i knew baby wasnt transverse, and it was very clear that they couldnt / wouldnt support a transverse delivery, though i cant imagine someone with a transverse baby making an informed decision to attempt to deliver a transverse baby at home (or vaginally) anyway!!!

Op, can I ask you a few odd questions?

Do you live in a so called deprived area or are you poor?

Do you fit into a minority group?

Are you a lone parent?

If the answers to these are no then you are unlikely to get any problems by refusing the service.

If the answers are yes then you are likely to get threatened with other intervention

Well I guess my area may be thought of as a deprived area or an up and coming trendy area depending on who you speak to!
Tbh if I would still have to have a nhs delivery I would prefer to go private with midwife led care. I'd have to borrow the money from family as we don't have that kind of spare cash but I totally think it would be worth it. The ordeal we went through last time with the antenatal,delivery and postnatal care Im sure contributed to long lasting problems for me and all my family.

Dd never saw the HV after she brought her red book round when the MW discharged us after a week. Dd was never weighed, I never went to clinic, GP did health checks and immunisations. I think she might have been weighed at one of them but not sure. She was and still is fine, there was no referral made because I declined HV services, GP was fully supportive of my reasons.

I told my health visitor I wasn't interested in her "services". She was a bit as no-one had ever said that before.
We go for any vaccinations, but that's all.

(And my reasons...I have other children, and kicked the last health visitor out as she was a complete numpty. Plus they always seem to want to come round at times which are not convenient to me, and I don't want to be sat waiting for someone to visit, when I'd rather be somewhere else. I've never taken any of my kids to be weighed either. All that percentile lines and stuff is a load of rubbish).

Yes I agree princess percentiles are really silly. Lots of research suggests they are misleading anyway. Plus what do you do if your baby is on the 'wrong' percentile anyhow? We all feed our babies the very best we can in any case. They seem to be there to either worry you or for you to have tedious conversations worrying about them. This time around I will go with my instincts which I reckon is always best.

floppops one 2 one midwives is completely free (paid for by NHS) so you dont need any cash at all to switch....

but there are quite new, are not everywhere and only started in my area 3 weeks ago

I turned 40 this year and my first DD was an assisted delivery with postpartum hemorrhaging so I am pretty sure the nhs would deem me high risk.. I think ( could be wrong)? that the one to one service with a home birth wouldn't be available to me.

Im quite concerned by the lack of decent health visitors and what support they can offer.

In my area it appears you get very little other than 2 weighs a hearing test and then a 1 year check up unless your noted as being universal plus or higher on there risk scale.

During my last dc's 1 year check up the HV sat in my living room and talked about feeding and asked me if I used fresh fruit and veg she said this whilst sat next to a huge fruit bowl youngest dc was in high chair eating berries pears and apples and teenager had just walked into room and grabbed a avocado a banana and some strawberries, one would have thought it was obvious that she didn't need to ask.

Sorry only just seen you asked a question op but looks like its been answered by fuckwittery who has a bit more knowledge than me. Hope you do get the birth you want.