What do they do at baby clinics? What do HVs do?

[Smurfgirl]

Just got my next placement as a nursing student, and its at a health clinic specialising in under 5s. Also will be spending time with HV.

I am training to be an adult nurse so this is a bit unexpected (although am quite excited!). I dont't have children, so exuse my naivety but what happens with babies/children at clinics?
And what do HVs do?

TIA.

well IME they weigh them and then just answer any questions you may have or any concerns

hI smurfgirl

At our baby clinic it's a drop in so first come first served. I go to get my baby weighed and her progress plotted in her record book - I go monthly. My HV is available to give me advice on baby and childcare. At the moment we're working on a plan to finally get my 3.5 yr old to sort out his lack of toilet training!

The HV I have at the moment is great and very well read and well informed on the latest research and advice. but if you do any searches of the Mumsnet archive, you'll find that this is a very rare thing indeed. Most HV's seem to be out of touch and quick to dispense ill-informed "advice". They also are notorious for telling mothers to switch to formula milk unnecessarily if some of the stories on here are anything to go by.

Enjoy your placement - I'm sure you'll meet all sorts

I'm an LD nurse and had to spend 2weeks with HV too. I was lucky to work alongside a family with LD parents having LD children but this is very uncommon.

There's lots of weighing; progress checks etc. You'll also visit new mums in their own homes after discharging from midwife care.

I'd concentrate on your interpersonal skills / communciation competencies. Also care plans / assessments take slightly different forms as you'd see in hospitals. They'll be lots of things like toilet training plans; help with weaning; breast feeding support, behaviour management etc. Hv's also do things like home risk assessments for safety; fire etc. They may also work alongside Mental Health and Learning DIsability services more than you'd see in hosp. There's lots to learn and don't dismiss it because its not in a hospital.

I spent 12wks on a CCU and went in thinking what was I going to learn and dismissed it - but I still remember all the basic skills I learnt and can recall many of the scenarios now even though I have little call to empty a catheter bag these days.

we used to have a clerk/assistant do the weighing and the health visitors were there for parents to ask for advice or make appointments for home visits or to source resources/support groups etc.

Ours was also run on a drop in sortof thing - ran from 2 - 4 and it was first come first served. Great though if you just needed weighing - the clerk/assistant did that and you could be on your way and that freed up the HV's to do what they needed to do.

a parent can opt out of them, too.

our HV is a nosey busybody waste of time so i haven't had dd2 weighed since she was 8 weeks.

ours is also a good contact on the phone (when they actually answer!) for health concerns etc, rather than hassling your g.p
they can advise what to do and tell you when you should see a doctor.

ours are also very keen to look out for signs of pnd ..mine makes us fill out the edinburgh test form everytime.