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.

My health visitors have been lovely but I do find the whole house visit thing a bit of a charade, with them asking how we are getting on and me saying "fine"because I don't want to get into an involved discussion about any minor problems and I just don't want them "on my case" in general.
When i did have a specific problem once ( bf pain) the extremely nice HV was completely useless and it was apparent I knew far more about bf than she did!

I'm in total agreement with you jasper. I never got any useful info. from any of my hv's. I had one who was lovely, but wore gallons of the stinkiest perfume and insisted on holding and caressing my son through the whole visit. I had to give him a bath (his first) afterwards!. I spent the next visit trying to pretend that he was asleep and couldn't be touched as it would wake him up (not true at all...he's always slept like a log). He then peed all over her scales while she was trying to weigh him.

The thing that drives me crazy is when different doctors give you conflicting advice at each visit. I have several doctors in the office. Ive been told on several times different amounts of tylenol to give for a 19 mo old. When to introduce cereal etc. Ive learned to do things on my own with my own instincts. The tylenol I finally found the proper amount. One tsp for his age.

Have to say that I've only ever seen the HV at baby jabs and 8m test appointments. Didn't really have any strong views. That said, I have to respect their lack of pushiness about the MMR (none of mine have had it) as several friends have had HVs turn into phone pests about this. Also, no pushy comments from midwives or HVs about me not breast-feeding so I give them another thumbs up for that.

Wonderful Community Midwife, dreadful HV!

I am an older (39), professional, anxious, first (and only) time Mum, living in a fairly working class area. The HV told me I was "borderline" for PND, and told me"You should see someone about it!". Didn't refer me , or suggest who, but left it at that. When she once found me in floods of tears about something that I've now completely forgotten, she told me that she never has this kind of "trouble" from the teenage mums! In spite of running the local breastfeeding support group, she was forever telling me and others to "top-up" with formula, and wondered why I hadn't started weaning when I went to the group 13 weeks after dd was born. I could go on and on...

I was horrified, therefore, when dd recently gave "the idiot HV" a great big grin shortly after she'd given dd 2 jabs and a mouthful of polio! I would have preferred her to throw up!!!

am resurrecting this thread as I also have had bad experiences with my HV, and I don't know anyone who has anything good to say about theirs. (But it is good to see that some people on mumsnet have had positive experiences....)

Can someone explain exactly what the role of a HV is, and how far their remit goes - why can't they give explicit medical advice - weren't they all nurses/midwives in a previous life?

I am very lucky as the two that I have had were both excellent (we moved house between babies). Both were mature ladies who were calmly supportive. I got the strong feeling that they had seen just about everting that parenthood could throw at anyone. First rate, and made me feel much more confident of my own mothering skills. That last one would come into the kitchen where ds was stuffing his face with marmite soldiers and she said to the student HV with her, 'Now, isn't that just what you want to see, a happy baby feeing himself so well'. I glowed with pleasure and it was only a little later I thought that she might say this, or something like it, as a boost to the mother's ego. Whatever the reason she made me fell wonderful.

I've had three HV and they have varied.

My HV now (HV3) is fantastic. DS1 is autistic and she is like a rock. She supports my battles with speech and language therapists and attacks them on my behalf. She has been very supportive about my decision to not vaccinate (at all) DS2- no hassle at all. She just listened to my reasoning, and then said "I totally understand why you are doing this, and I would do the same in your position".

HV2 was quite good as well. When DS1's problems were first becoming apparent (about 22 months). She was ressuring and made extra home visits but also referred him to speech and language ("just in case". She was also very kind in the early days with DS2 when I was getting him weighed and DS1 (then undiagnosed but fairly obviously heading towards a diagnosis) threw himself around the little room. She helped me cope with the two and didn't amke me feel bad about his behaviour at all. So top marks all round really.

Just thought a stand in HV did some research for me on probiotics when DS2 had had antibiotics at 6 weeks and I was beside myself (I believe they contributed to DS1s problems). She found out what dose was safe to give himand rand me at home with the information.

In my experience when I've really needed help they have provided it, in a supportive and non-judgemental way. Much better than most of the GP's and consultant's I've dealt with.

Well, I've moved house since we had our kind hippie HV and now we have three ladies in their 50s. I cannot get over how kind they all were after ds2 was stillborn this summer. Ds1 had severe constipation for a time afterwards and they rang and called round regularly, ostensibly to check how he was, but also to see how I was doing.
I think that until very recently at least all health visitors were trained nurses who had also usually been midwives...but that, like midwifery itself, you can now train to be a HV having not done full nurse training first. I bet Mears knows the answer to this.
I also think their remit is to take over from your midwife at 6 weeks and monitor the child's development and general health until age 5. They are meant to support the parent in getting the child off to a good start, but as this thread shows, there seems to be a very wide interpretation of "supporting" parents!
Because they are attached to a GP's surgery they will always refer any "medical" matter back to the doctor, but in my experience they can do direct referrals for speech and language assessment etc.
If there is a real-life HV out there I'm sure she/he can say if any/all of that is correct...

I think Marina is correct, you don't need to have been a nurse or a midwife to be a HV - HVs also support elderly people or other older people with special needs, I believe.

I too have had good experiences; my DS was born with an unusual medical condition & the HV was wonderfully supportive in the early days. We now have a new HV who is equally good but in a very different way - however because she is so different ie: a young, professional type compared to the previous one who was much older & more 'mumsy' - she is not considered so popular - I found her excellent on the one occasion I had to see her.

Like any professions, you're going to get good ones & poor ones I suppose.

Marina I have only been frequenting mumsnet for a short time. I had no idea your son was stillborn. It certainly puts my problems into persepective. Obviously I can't say anything helpful but having read that I am thinking of you. I think I've found the same as you though. I had a fairly low opinion of HVs until I really needed their help and they've all come up trumps. Now I think they're fantastic. HV3 has spent a lot of time making sure that I'm ok and that DS1's problems aren't getting on top of me (they aren't). I've found it oddly reassuring to know that someone was looking out for me I have to say. No one else has

I think your assessment of their remit is correct. General support from 6 weeks until age 5.

I've had 3 HV's and I'm afraid to say they have all been pretty much useless.
The first one told me that I would 'never' manage to exclusively breastfeed my dd as she was so big (she was big at 9lb12oz) and to introduce formula as soon as possible. She also totally missed the PND thst put me in hospital. Second one (with second baby) suggested the CLBB to me, as ds wasn't sleeping too well. Well, he and I had been pretty much addicted to pethedine for 8 weeks due to my kidney stones and it took us a few weeks to detox and settle down - I knew that. She either hadn't read my history at all (considering it was the CLBB/PND that put me in hospital for a month) or was the most tactless woman on the face of the earth. I complained about her (should have about the first as well I know) because of how she treated me but also as she was handing out the book to new parents with money she was supposed to be using to build a new balanced parenting library in the practice. She got a written warning for that and left soon afterwards.
Current HV is so bland as to be practically not there at all. Think she is afraid of me actually as I 'got rid of' her predecessor. I've only seen her about twice, she makes no effort at all.
I underatnd a good HV can be a lifesaver. I wish I had had one of those!

We moved when my ds twins were 1yo, it was only then that HV2 in new practice noticed my PD.
HV1 had been totaly useless following the birth, I kept asking for advice, and she didn't have a clue.HV2 is brilliant, such a practical woman, she is a single mother and her child has learning difficulties.I realy like her as a person and we have great chats, I'm only sorry that we are just about to be handed over to the school nurse, now that the boys are older and we will not get to chat as much.
I think if I'd had her suport following the boys birth, I would never have got into such a state, and would have enjoyed their first year far more.

My hv is the most brillaint wonderful woman I could wish to have! She has been really great with getting ds2 who has cp sorted, checking to see how we are all coping, getting dd1 her incontinence pads , getting dd2 her speech therapy and extra reading help organised at school, and recommended nurseries for both ds1 and ds2 when he is old enough. I didn't have a health visitor at all assigned to me where I moved from in september, and I lived there for 6 1/2 years, so it's fantastic being able to hand over all that stuff to someone else to sort out!

My first HV was useless, kept changing her mind every week over what advice she was giving, as I didn't know at the time I could change HV I was lucky that my doctor was so useless as well so I changed docs and got a new HV. This one totally upset me at ds' 18 month check by totally ignoring everything he could do and concentrated on saying there was something wrong with him because he couldn't speak yet. I complained about her and was persuaded to try the new HV out who is supposed to be a down to earth, speaks her mind Aussie. Turns out she's trying to emotionally blackmail me into getting ds to see a speech therapist (by saying if it was her kid she'd want the best for him and to get him all the help he could get that sort of thing). My argument is that if ds had started to speak at the normal time he'd be at the stage he's at now. He was just a bit late in learning to talk (too busy being ahead on other things). I rang the speech therapist up and she said as long as he was making sentences (which he is) then the pronounciation would come with time. When I told HV this she rang the speech therapist up and the speech therapist rang me back and told me something completely different. Anyway when ds was having problems at his nursery the HV went to observe for a couple of hours. Instead of reporting back that the key worker was completely lacking in being able to take charge, wasn't treating ds fairly and that was why he was misbehaving (the owner of the nursery told us all this when we gave them notice that ds was leaving) she just said it was his speech and he had to go to speech therapist. We even asked her if the key worker could take charge of the kids and she completely bottled it and said we should take it up with the nursery if we felt that. So much for the straight talking Aussie I say it how it is. Also when I wanted to stop breast feeding after six months they wouldn't help me and just told me to carry on. I eventually spoke to a really nice one (who has unfortunately left now) who managed to make me feel as if I wasn't the scum of the earth for wanting to stop bf and she went through how I went about it. None of my family (who all have loads of kids) have anything good to say about HV. Ds' 3 and a 1/4 year check is coming up soon and I'm in two minds whether to let them come and do it. I know the HV will just keep going on about speech therapy and just not bother looking into the other stuff he does do. I might tell her she can come if she promises not to mention speech therapy and the moment she does she'll be out the door.

Mine was awful - suggested a psychiatrist at 11 weeks pregnant because I had issues regarding my Mums death when I was small - left me in tears for hours with her crappy amateur psychology. Wrote REGIMENTED in big letters in my red book when I told her I was using GF (and doing v. well on it), and answered every question I had after that by telling me I wouldn't have had the problem if I'd listened to what my baby wanted in the first place (Maybe we should do a swap susanmt ) Having said that, I do have to thank her for my discovery of Mumsnet - when I asked her how I could manage to drink and bf (ie pump and dump afterwards - and it was a special occasion) she told me I should either give up alcohol completely or stop BF - fortunately you lot where far less judgemental and lots more useful!

Marina - I am not too sure of all the intricacies of health visiting now. I believe that actual 'health visitors' still require to be nurses first. They are now educated to degree level. There are other groups working in the community now who come under the umbrella of public health practitioners - don't ask me what they do! The health visitor role nearly vanished but I think it will now remain.

Mine was sweet - but I avoided contact ( apart from the crappy development assessments!!) like the plague, because I could never really work out the point of her job and I didn't feel I needed her.