"Crap your HV told you"

[colditzmum]

I don't like health visiters in general. Could all the other MNers back me up on this one?

ME

to clarify .. I am NOT a HV .. I don't like them in general

well my old HV was wonderful, absolutely golden

this one..............................huh

mine was a bit wishy washy but meant well . . .

Me - I find them utterly pointless.

They have NEVER, over 3 babies managed to tell me anything I already knew or could have worked out for myself. I find myself cringing when they are sat there telling me things that are SO obvious and find it really hard to bite my tongue!

do a search with HV in subject heading .. was going to post a link but there are too bloody many of them about crap advice from

...supplement a bf baby with vitamins if bf'ing to 6 months

to

... HV says 3 week old baby feeding to much and should have a dummy

to

put a 3 month BF baby on formula because he's growth spurting

to

oh I think that's enough for now

that said I have DS's 3.5 year developmental check on friday .. first time I'll have seen one for about 2.5 years

Mine told me to give my (then) 6mo baby all his drinks in an OPEN-TOPPED CUP! Do they have a contract with Daz??????/

I don't know about HV's in general but mine is pretty useless. I was sure that something wasn't right with ds1 but she fobbed me off for an entire year, said that he was probably just a late developer and that she'd see him at his 2yr check-up. He failed on pretty much everything so she finally referred him for speech therapy. Ds1 was later diagnosed with autism but the HVdidn't even bother to contact us us to see if we were coping (we weren't). The Paediatrician invited her to ds1's case conference. She didn't turn up. The portage worker insisted that the HV visit us so that she could see what problems we were having with ds1. She stayed 10 minutes, promised to phone us. That was almost a year ago and we still haven't heard from her.

Some HV's may well be lovely and helpful but ours is only interested in baby-weighing.

have to pipe up: i loved mine. just so warm and supportive. she ran a baby massage class really just so local mothers would get to know each other. at the end, when maternity leave was up, we all gave her a big gift voucher. the mothers and 'babies' still keep in touch.

must say I was very lucky with my HV - she was brilliant - always followed up and asked about any hospital appts we had with dd.. always called when she was notified that dd had been in hospital - The other one that served our village - not so good... found her rather cold and hard to take to.

Miss her since we have moved.

jellyhead

I had a perfectly nice one first time round (not much use on stuff like childcare, but perfectly nice); bloody hopeless this time round, I think - obsessed with (a) weaning (b) stuffing them full of milk - but quite honestly I've not seen any of them for ages and ages, ever since they upset me about how dd2 was wasting away and needed weaning (ie given solid food less calorific than the fatty breastmilk she was gorging herself on). Haven't taken either child for any checkups for about a year now. They seem fine to me.

oh, and also I got highly fed up at one of the few baby clinics I did go to, where I found myself in tears coping with one screaming baby and a recalcitrant toddler; I said loudly and tearfully I CAN'T COPE and would really, really have liked one of the HVs to stop lecturing a poor girl on her habits of boozing while b/fing and pay me, perhaps, a bit of attention.

I have to say that my HV is great and very thorough she always follows up on DS with interest and genuine concern. She runs parenting classes which are very very good.
In addition, one of my very best friends is a superb HV so i cant complain at all.
It must be frustrating when you get a crap one tho.

Message withdrawn

had one hv tell me that the mongolian blue spot on my baby was a sign of abuse and that I had obviously been beating the baby. (For those that don't know a mongolian blue spot is found on mixed race babies. It looks like a bruise, or a large blue spot). Current HV wonderful. Had useless midwife though who, without knowing my history, told me that I couldn't possibly breastfeed twins and that I would absolutely have to supplement and bottle feed them. She also told me that the senior registrar at the hospital was wrong to allow me to come home as my blood pressure was high. She also said, whilst looking at my quiet children, who were watching a film, that it was clearly difficult in my house and hell for me. Love her. Hope never to see her ever again.

we have two HVs - one is fab but the other is awful. She smiles a lot but always looks like a scared rabbit caught in the headlights. My heart sinks when I see that she's doing the clinic but thankfully we don't need to bother going now that the vaccinations are done

one day, as she was injecting dd, she randomly and totally out of the blue said to me "how are your nipples"

it was one of these annoying situations where I couldn't think of a suitably smart reply at the time

My proper HV has disappeared. She was a blase person and when I did ring her for advice and left a message on the phone she never returned the call. Also went to baby clinic, she was not even there.
My fave bit of advice is
Perservere with homecooked food - a baby will turn away from a food 16 times before accepting it?!!!
Other stuff that is way to obvious and I ask myself If I should train to become one!

My HV was lovely, supportive without being intrusive and nothing was too much trouble. After my caesarean she came to me for all of dd's checks as we are a long walk from the clinic, and at the beginning of my PND she was fabulous. She came to see me every week, got me in to see a mental health nurse when my GP was reluctant, and was there as a support and someone to sound off too. I don't recall her giving any dodgy advice, she was always warm, supportive and generous with her time.

I had an absolutely brilliant HV the first time I had a baby, who was an expert on breastfeeding and totally 100% committed to backing mothers to breastfeed and not undermine them with crap about not gaining quickly enough. She also recognised and respected the fact that mothers are the most important decision makers in babies' lives, not GP's or HV's! Fabulous woman, if you want her, go to Lewisham!

Every other HV I've ever met has been less informed than me about breastfeeding, vaccinations, weaning, childcare, positive parenting, etc. etc.

Which makes me wonder, what are they? Are they qualified nurses? And how much updating of their training do they have to do?