Can the HV really not hace a clue???

[MumtoEliane]

I got to the point where I got actually angry.

I though my DD has cradle cap. I looked in a book that I think has got very accurate stuff and pretty good advise and in there it said that cradle cap is not painful at all but a cosmetic problem, but there is some special shampoo to treat it.

So I took DD to HV to a general check up and showed her the cradle cup. She said put some olive oil and then wash it off. I asked her to tell me the name of the shampoo to treat it and she said "is shampoo for cradle cap". Ok. Went to the chemyst and got the shampoo. The pharmacyst told me never to give her oil! The HV also told me that I should treat it as soon as possible otherwise it increases, it gets harder, and it will hurt (???)

I know I should be inclined to listen to the HV but she has told me very strange things in the past. For example: the previous HV told me DD has dry skin in her face and that I should give her moisturising. Now, I didn't see any dryness but I did as I was told. Didn't see any difference in her skin, it was nice and soft. So yesterday I asked the HV if I can stop giving her moisturiser. She said yes, her skin is lovely. And I said, well, thats what I thought but was told it was dry... she said no when its dry it gets a bit like sand paper (!!!!!!) honestly! Sand paper???? I hope not!

So I am now properly peed off with this woman. Is like talking to a victorian nurse, I wonder if they get ongoing training? Why the advice differs SOOOOO much form a HV to a pharmacyst to another HV?

Really angry.

When the pharmacist said not to use oil was he taking about the Johnsons one rather than olive oil (you mentioned that in another post)? Just that I'm wondering if he specifically meant not to use that one - which I've been told by many people (HVs, etc.) cos it's just a by-product of their other products.

FWIW, I think it can be worrying to get different advice from HVs, especially if you've maybe had issues with one previously. It can be easy to get in the mindset that all their advice could be flawed. Sometimes it's hard to remember that there's many ways of treating things and some will work for one person and not for another.

But if you asked a HV advice about something really important, like smoking, cot death prevention, immunisations, car seat advice etc you'd be much more likely to get standardised advice.

Things such as skin care are so 'woolly' as there are no hard and fast rules. I'm a health professional with 15 years experience as well as being a mum of 3 but my training and experience is different to other health professionals so for some issues I may well give different advice to my colleagues. That doesn't make me wrong, it just means I have a different opinion or experience.

Many aspects of health have procedures, protocols and DoH or NICE guidelines and should be followed but parenting isn't and shouldn't be prescriptive as babies and children aren't machines, they are complex little creatures!

My anger was about the clashing advice not the scab on the head...

And then I got very hurt by the coments about my spelling and me being foreign.

Everytime you say something is not right I have to try to explain it, maybe because I am stubborn.

OP I think your attitude towards your health visitor is unreasonable but I am quite surprised at the bashing you are getting here. I would leave the thread now for your own sanity

I still can't understand why you were angry with the HV who agreed with you that there was nothing wrong with your babies skin?

Do you expect them to be robots and all have the exact same ideas?

Pharmacyst said oil (not olive oil, true) and then "specialy not the perfumed ones"

Fair enough that for more important issues they have standarised advise.

And honestly, I didn't try to be dramatic.

I think all that needed to be sais has been said, and yes, I will try olive oil!

OK OP. I know it's worrying when you've got a little one, but generally the HV's are there to help you, not make life more difficult.

Good luck with the Olive oil.

OP - I think some people advise against oil because there's a theory that the bacteria that live in cradle cap feed on it and it can make things worse (perhaps that's why some people say to wash it off?).

We tried olive oil on DD and it did soften the cradle cap but didn't fix the problem and also brought off a lot of her hair when it flaked off. We also tried dentinox, which did nothing. In the end we put sudocrem on her head for a couple of days - didn't look very good but seemed to clear up most of it. Once her hair grew back she seemed fine.

I've heard that you shouldn't use Johnson's baby oil on small babies because it's a mineral oil but any oil you can eat (sunflower, olive etc.) is ok and it's also good for their skin if you put a few drops of it in the bath water.

As other people have said, you will get different advice from different people and different books. Just find out what suits you best.

MtE, you are most certainly not the only person on MN to have been dissapointed with your HV's (ill) advice. I'm sure she is nice and means well in her advice. But, it is best to remember that she is not a doctor. And, in my opinon, it is best to seek medical advice from someone who has been to medical school.

Some other examples of poor advice from HV's (poor in my opinon anyway)

1. White bread is more heathful because you h=can give a young child too much fibre.
2. Fromage Frais is good for babies because it is a good source of calcium.

I wonder what the official HV advice is on fruit shoots?

I didn't say that you were an idiot who would want to feed your baby oil because you were foreign. I asked whether (because you didn't have English as a first language) the pharmacist might have completely misunderstood what you were asking. It's easy to use a preposition or idiom that has overtones you're not aware of when you are speaking in a language that isn't your first language, even when you are effectively fluent.

Subsequently you've explained that you never mentioned oil at all in any way, and told us what the pharmacist said in more detail, so that's obviously not the case here. But there was never any implication that you were an idiot or that you did want to feed your baby oil.

You can give a young child too much fibre.
What exactly is ill advised about using oil on cradle cap?

Persnickety - you can give a young child too much fibre. It swells and fills the stomach so reducing the appetite for other more nutritious foods.

Wholegrains aren't advised for young children or babies.

And also people that have been to medical school won't actually have spent much, if any, study time on those issues affecting normal generally healthy babies and children.

Is persnickity honestly advocating going to the GP for cradlecap?

Firstly, clearly things are being lost in translation. For example, you are coming across as a bit rude and the 'I am educated' comment does sound very patronising. However, this may also be a case of lost translation over the internet. Secondly I'm dyslexic myself so I do understand the difficulties that brings.

However, a question:
You have drs in your family so you prefer to use a medical remedy (eg shampoo for cradle cap), but when a health professional (though not a doctor) recommended a solution you chose to ignore it. Why?

Oh and the 'give olive oil thing' - 'give' is often synonymous with 'feed' (short for 'give to eat' perhaps), hence some of the confusion.

It's impossible and unworkable to have standardised advice to the nth degree imo, as it cuts out an element of personal choice, and, as you'll know from being related to doctors, medicine is not an exact science so no solution will work for all.

Encouraging them to develop a taste for white bread at an early age in place of whole meal is more damaging nutritionally. When you look at the UK diet as a whole, it is very unlikely that whole meal bread will lead to a situation of too much fibre.

That advice is rubbish.

So is the framage frais is healthful advice.

Never met a HV who could tell me something useful I didn't already know. Just my opinion. If I need medical advice, I'll ring the GP. Otherwise, the NHS should save their money for people who need that level of advice.

Healthy is the word you're looking for.

It's not the worst thing in the world to give a baby.

Avocating going to the doctor for a little bit of dry skin is a bit ott no?

Fromage frais is a good source of calcium. There is such a thing as plain fromage frais, after all; it's what we used to have as children. And there is plain fromage frais with a little fruit puree mixed into it. And then at the other end of the spectrum there's fromage frais that's full of sugar and artificial sweeteners and has only an extremely nodding acquaintance with anything that could be described as fruit.

Unless you are avoiding dairy products entirely it seems a bit harsh to pick on fromage frais.

When DD had colics my stepmum told me to give her aniseed, granny to give her chamomile tea, midwife infacol and HV Colief. When for the Colief as it was that HV that was doing the follow up on my baby.

When I spoke to my cousin who is a doctor, she said that home remedies are not tested and proved safe. Many are very good, but many other can actually harm the baby or adult as in the case of aniseed which is very strong on the tummy. Although some medicines are based in homemade remedies (pointing out that the teething gel I bought in the chemyst is made with Althea officinalis and chamomile) she said, yes of course but still they have been tested and proved not to be harmful. And if they can be for some people it is started on the side effects.

ACtually, I said I'd go to the doctor if I was seeking medical advice. As it happens, I would probably turn to google if I noticed some crusty skin, or possibly to MN. If I was still unsure, and you are going to love this, I know a fantastic pharmacist and I very confident he would recommend the perfect thing.

I just think OP was jumped on from the word go on this thread. SO, I wanted to point out she was not alone in her HV frustration.

I don't dislike my health visitor, but I do think the advice she gives is pretty much down to common sense and I could more easily seek it elsewhere. SO, I wouldn't ever have the occassion to find it worth my time to show up for an appointment at the GP's surgery just to be told what I could have read on the internet without even leaving my desk.

I accept there are some people who like this service, and that is fine... for them.

Pernickety has a very good HV.

FFS, some of you need to get a grip. Or a private paediatrician if you want medical answers to every tiny question you have. Otherwise appreciate the free service you get from trained HCP's that are only trying to help you.

My HV was a very strange woman (an opinion shared by my GP oddly enough). Despite a lot of leading questions she was terribly disappointed to conclude that I wasn't suffering from postnatal depression. And I finally lost patience with her after she said my son, who was projectile vomiting due to undiagnosed pyloric stenosis, had 'a bit of colic' and not to worry. Luckily, I ignored her and called the doctor instead.

So my suggestion to the OP when it comes to your baby is to weigh all the advice given (because it will come at you from all quarters) and then exercise your own judgement.

You might want to open your Oxford dictionary before you (rudely) correct grammar which is actually not incorrect.

From Oxford (in case you don't have one handy):

healthful
adjective having or conducive to good health.

It is common to say "healthy" instead of "healthful". But that has only become accepted more rescently and therefore healthful is still the preferred ajdective form of the word.

Hi,

I understand why you feel upset. And you feel Chemist and HV gave such varying advice.

I think Chemist misunderstood you and thought you were going to feed your DC olive oil rather than smear it on your DCs head.

My DD had the dreaded cradle cap. I did the olive oil on her head. And it was great.

What you do is leave the oilve oil on for a few hours or overnight and then wash with cradle cap shampoo. Effective for even servere cases like my DDs.

However DD also had cradle cap in her eyebrows (yes I know really odd and really odd looking too!) and I was to scared to do olive oil in her brow area so I took cotton wool pads and expressed some breastmilk and wiped the brows twice a day with breastmilk.

It worked a treat! It was gone within 3 days and I wish I had done it on her head too as it was effective faster than olive oil.

So if you're BFing you could try it too. I know it sounds odd but really does the trick.
xx

Ah so where does heathful come into it? Or is that you own special brand of condescending?

If your not going to spell it right don't be surprised when people think you are going for something else.

preferred adjective in law? preffered by you, i myself prefer to be understood to the masses rather than the up themselves. Just MO.