Your HV good or bad?

[ames]

Have been reading the other threads and there seems to be a lot about HV so thought i'd dedicate a thread to the profession! Mine has misdiagnosed reflux as colic, when i asked for advice re constant crying I was told to give her the bottle and a dummy and. I find she gives quite odd advice if any regarding weaning and when I ask her about dd slow weight gain she seems reluctant to give my any concrete advice. She is quite pleasant and chatty and I wish she gave me better/more advice. As a 1st time mum I feel she could be far more helpful and their involvement within families seems to be rapidly declining. Just wondered what othere people thought of theirs.

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Mine (who never did anything but complain that my beanpole baby was underweight for his height anyway) retired 5 months ago, and hasn't been replaced, so we don't have one. In theory we can ask to see another one, but they always seem to make a big point of reminding us that we're not their caseload, and never offer anything but weighing without being asked, so I generally don't bother.

I resented being told "you've got to make him fit into your routine" when ds was 5 days old. No advice about how to do this and from a childless HV. Also was told loads of c* about food and nutrition. So my experience wasn't good. This was in West London. She now has a baby, ha ha ha. wish you could do an evil grin here. This will have to do

Feel fairly neutral about mine. Nice lady, some good advice, some bad advice.I take it all with a pinch of salt.

Mine was really kind and friendly. At the time I lived in a grotty flat in a smart suburb and my health visitor had a Mercedes Estate with personalised number plates, a wardrobe of expensive, pretty, earth mother clothes, and used to well up in sympathetic tears whenever I mentioned going back to work. I think she had a limited perspective on life as it was lived by most of us but as you might expect from a genteel hippie, she was pro-breastfeeding, pro-organic, privately sceptical about the MMR, pro-co-sleeping, and very reassuring about weight gain in b/f babies. She and her job-share also organised a smashing postnatal group at the GPs surgery and I still have good friends made at that group.
Also: I had a lot of problems after ds was born and the friend who brought me back to reality in the kindest way was a tough-talking, gum-chewing, boozing HV from a much tougher suburb. She said I could call her any time, and she meant it. She showed me how to express milk. She brought lasagne round for us and stayed to wash up afterwards. And I know from talking to others that she did this for friends and clients alike. At their best, health visitors can be so supportive and, having read comments on Mumsnet, I realise I was immensely lucky.

My HVs were really terrible and put lots of pressure on me not to breastfeed, so they could record how many oz he drank each day! On the first visit I was in bed and she told me off, made me get dressed and go out alone leaving my baby with my mum. I walked down the road and cried at leaving him and feeling tired and a failure, and then cried because I had turned into the kind of person who cries in the street! She told me to stop breastfeeding and just express, so I could tell her how much he had drunk. Eventually Mum rang up and complained that that HV had upset me too much and she should not come again. I was so relieved when HVs stopped coming round! NCT was fantastic by phone, and sent a mother round to sit with me, watch me feed, and reassure me.

awful. just didn't relate to her, she kept writing in dd's red book that she was 'on formula' when she was breastfed exclusively for a year and offered feeble suggestions eg 'have you tried homeopathy' for just about everything (ie go & pay for someone else's time, so you don't have to bother me) instead of practical tips. in those first few bewildering weeks of parenthood she told me to wake dd at 3am when she wasn't putting on weight as she was missing a feed - in retrospect this disrupted her sleeping pattern which took ages to put right and I think dd was just a 'slow gainer' at the beginning and has made up for it in spades since.
having just read this I sound so ungrateful, so I must acknowledge how little hv's get paid, how low morale is in a profession which is understaffed etc (hv I met since then who was lovely said working in Hackney was like being on a battleground!) - so I suppose they have lots of stuff to cope with. a lot of their territory overlaps with other professionals eg they can't actually give you medical advice, and will redirect you to a gp. that might be why many of us have had bad experiences because they're struggling to find a niche and unless you 'click' with a particular hv it's a difficult relationship to establish.

The HV's I had were OK with each of my sons. They helped teach me the basic skills of motherhood, answered my questions and in the early days, came as often as I needed them. Best thing was, they knew when to back off.

As soon I had a rough routine going and my baby was putting on weight, I felt their visits were intrusive. Just as it should be, they took the hint.

One comment, however, sticks in my mind. On seeing my second son, the HV said 'isn't he bony' with such distaste I have never quite forgiven her.

HV's should, IMO, avoid even the mildest dodgy personal comment. In those early days, so many memeories are made and unfortunately I will remember those words forever.

my HV is average I guess, never pushed me into anything that turned out a complete failure, but never really made any useful suggestions either, I found out later that she seems to dish out the same advice to everyone. She's never really told me anything I did not know and the one advice she gave me, when dd was a few weeks old was rubbish: dd would wake up and cry everytime I try to put her down in her bay chair/pram/moses basket, and her advice was to sit in the car seat in front of a window overlooking the garden and let her cry for a while and she'll stop eventually....FAT CHANCE!!!! I don't know why I was so stupi to follow her advice DD got so upset it took me ages to calm her down.....of course she could not be interested in the trees and birds at a few weeks of age, don't think she could see that far anyway....

anyway I've given up asking her fro advice, I find Mumsnet a much more reliable source!!!!!!

At least mums here speak from personal experience and do not repeat something they've learned to say at their training.

We don't have a health visitor allocated at all because this area is understaffed.

Like Marina, my HV was great, she ran a post natal group at the local village hall, where I met some great new friends who have remained exactly that. She never pushed you into anything you felt uncomfortable with and was a huge support to me when I was having trouble breastfeeding and dd was losing weight. She even ran a 'Can't Cook / Won't Cook' session helping even the worst cooks like me, how to prepare easy, fresh food for weaning.
She was one of the kindest least judgemental people I have ever met at a time when I really needed it, she even brought cream cakes to the group when I left to return to work.
I realise how lucky we were when I hear some of the comments on this thread and wish that all Hv's had more sensitivity and commonsense on top of their qualifications.

I definitely agree that Mumsnet is better than HV advice - next to useless. In fact they seem to avoid giving advice. The Community Midwives were MUCH better - I was really sad to see them go after 10 days. I now only go to Baby Clinic to get dd weighed periodically and avoid having any sort of material interaction with them as they just irritate me with their woolliness.

Great reading everyones experiences good and bad- it does seem that in general (and i'm being very general!!) they not quite singing from the same hymn sheet as everyone else. Have to agree with you LKM my community midwife was absolutly fabulous, really encouraging, funny and put in som much effort and time before and after the birth real effort. She did my membrane scrape to try and get me to go into labour when she was on shift at the hospital, in the end i was admitted just as she was leaving but she came straight in and found me first thing the next day. I too was sad to see her go.

My hv is really lovely, chatty and supportive. However, she did advise me to wean my dd too early (howled down by mumsnetters) and not very helpful with dd's trapped wind- I found my g.p. more supportive. On the other hand, I couldn't have survived without many of her other suggestions, her cheerfulness and her positive attitude, and she was a major factor in us making it through the early weeks.

Can't say the same about the community midwife. She was very rigid- she put my dd on my cracked nipple when it took two people to hold me down it was so painful, and wouldn't let me use a nipple sheid or anything other than Purelan (and then gave me the wrong phone no. to order it so I had to wait over a week). And then when I stopped breastfeeding she said that I lacked courage. If and when no.2 puts in an appearance I will ask to have someone different. Oh, and her advice to desperate, terrified parents re. colic: don't worry, it goes at 3 months. Very helpful.

Now I turn to mumsnet for advice: FAB!

I once had to see a male HV when our's was on holiday, he was hopeless, not helped by his poor command of the english language. I don't know how he qualified really because he didn't have a clue. My own HV is wonderful, it was she who first suggested trying soya milk when my dd was a screaming nightmare and turned her back into a proper baby. She's also very honest and tells you things that work, even if she really shouldn't because she's not allowed to advertise.

I too have a wonderful health visitor - she has supported me through a very difficult personal time - visiting me when she really didn't need too as my circumstances were not within her 'remit'. She has just retired and I will really miss her.

Used to have a fantastic hv when I lived in London, and he was male. Would put the rare species that is a health visitor here to shame!

I was fairly neutral about mine. She was very much of the call a spade a bloody shovel variety and tended to drop conversational bombs like " dont let anyone tell you she's fat"... I am just glad I did not need any support on anything difficult as bluntness can be a bit of a deterrent!

I've had 2 hvs since ds was born. Both have been brilliant for me in different ways. But the first had no children and did everything 'by the book', whereas the second has 3 kids and is also a nurse, so her advice is far more practical and realistic.

My HV for DS1 was very old fashioned and frightened the life out of me, she was always telling me off for one thing or another, fortunately she retired before DS2 arrived. HV2 also seemed very strict and really upset me when she said that she was referring DS1 for speech therapy (which nobody else thought he needed). It turned out that he was a bit slow in his speech development and I was actually quite grateful to her in the end and sent her a thank you letter when she left. HV3 looked after DD and I and she is brilliant and very down to earth, doesn't tell you what you 'should' be doing but suggest things to make life easier. She's also been a good friend to a neighbour of mine who has a 3 year old with leukaemia.

I've always felt that my HV trivialised my complaints and have certainly found Mumsnet much more useful.

Concerns not complaints.