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Parenting

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Original poster

Health visitors...are they always evil??? And can you trust their advice?

39 replies

flightattendant · 26/06/2007 13:32

I seem to always get an evil health visitor. Today was my first meeting with the new one since having DS2 two weeks ago.

She was totally humourless, DS1 kept interrupting us which was really difficult but she just kept asking the most inane questions...
eg. I mentioned I'd been depressed during the pregnancy, and also before it...she said, 'what kind of depression?' I mean, what kinds are there?
I said I didn't know, it wasn't really defined...
She kept on about DS2's father, irrelevant stuff, like was he going to be involved, and I really didn't want to talk about personal stuff like that in front of DS1...she seemed to be askig purely out of nosiness, there was no reason to ask.
Worst thing is it didn't feel like she really cared about any of it, just wanted to know so she could 'keep an eye on me' or just judge me as a parent.

Well maybe I'm just paranoid. And she told me I should breastfeed in a different position (we're doing fine thanks) and that I shouldn't swing DS2 in my arms to calm him down when he has tummy ache.
('he's too small, it would upset him') ???? It's the only thing that quietens him!

I wish I'd not told her anything about anything now. Witch!!!

OP posts:

Are your children’s vaccines up to date?

Set a reminder

Iklboo · 27/06/2007 13:44

Mine's lovely. Very supportive, remembers DS's name without referring to notes (I've bumped into her in the street), really nice & friendly. Gave us lots of good, sensible advice too

tiredemma · 27/06/2007 13:45

On my Public Health Placement with the Health Visitors, I found them to be lovely- very knowledgable and not at all patronising or clueless.

I really enjoyed my time with them

frances5 · 27/06/2007 13:57

I think that the problem is that we expect health visitors to be expert on everything from child development, maternal mental health, child behaviour expert, social work, nutrican, breastfeeding, midwivery

My son had developmental issues which the health visitors failed to pick up. At the child development centre he had one hour assessments for gross motor skills by a child physio, speech by a speech theraphist, hearing by an audiologist as well as general development review by a community paediatrian. Any development reviews by a health visitor are a joke in comparision.

The reality is that a health vistor knows very little about a lot. The problem is that many health visitors will not admit when they don't know something. Quite often health visitors will not make a referal when they should.

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Gingerbear · 27/06/2007 14:10

My HV is a bloke. He's OK, but a bit of a wet lettuce and not as nice as HV I had with DD, she was lovely.

I am glad I don't have any problems - I think I would find it difficult to discuss it with him TBH. Not cos he's a bloke, but because he seems a bit dippy.

evenhope · 27/06/2007 14:34

When my other kids were little we had a new HV just about every month. You'd just go through your life history with one and she'd leave. The not so nice one's seemed to hang on a bit longer.

This time around I'm not impressed with the HV at our surgery. I've seen her twice and she seems totally disinterested in me. We have to make an appt for baby clinic, and having done so and been kept waiting for the statutory 40 mins past the appt time she comes out, looks at the girl sat next to me and asks "who's next?". Why have appointments if you aren't going to check who you are supposed to be seeing? I'm not going to bother going again.

theUrbanDryad · 27/06/2007 18:33

the only time i ever saw my hv was for the vaccinations. there's a nice one and a stupid one at my surgery. the stupid one did ds 3rd lot of jabs, jabbed him in one leg (cue screaming) then said, "Oh i'll let you calm him down then i'll do the others." no you bloody won't you silly mare, just do the lot in one go so i can stick him on the boob!!

LadyVictoriaOfCake · 27/06/2007 18:36

we had a lovely male HV. i would name him on here, as was so sad when he left.

Gingerbear · 27/06/2007 18:46

I wonder why there is such a high turnover in HV's??

daisyboo · 27/06/2007 19:01

my first hv was horrible....told me at six weeks she had been worried about me developing pnd, but that i had "got over my blip". when i was eventually diagnosed with pnd at six months she said "i saw tgat coming" then offered no support. she also asked my friend's nigerian partner if he had electricity back home . total witch. she seemed a bit too hands on when helping with bf as well which made me very uncomfortable.

2nd HV had loads of experience and was great.

new one seems ok so far, but i had a concern about the contents of dds nappy and she didn't want to look

we have a hv on our AN/PN thread and she is fantastic...lots of sensible advice.

mamadoc · 28/06/2007 18:00

My HV is really great. She's a trained BF counsellor, she was so good in the early days helped me trust my instincts very pro co-sleeping, babywearing AND she baked home made cakes for our first time mum's group.

PregnantGrrrl · 28/06/2007 18:43

Mine wasn't 'evil', but i did find her patronising, and that she didn't actually listen to me half the time. Luckily, i only bothered seeing her at appointments and didn't need her for anything much.

And i LOATHE being called 'Mum' by anyone, let alone a woman i'm pretty sure i didn't give birth to! I have a name woman!

fryalot · 28/06/2007 18:45

my hv is fab. I would trust her with anything, she tells me what the current rules are, and then tells me what I should do.

She tells me what the government recommends, then tells me if I should ignore it or not.

edam · 28/06/2007 18:48

Mine was lovely, very supportive and reassuring and referred me to a b/f counsellor when I needed more help than she could give. Wish they were all like Maisie! She made me feel like I was brilliant and had produced a particularly gorgeous baby.

And when I was really struggling with mastitis, she sympathised, changed ds's nappy while I recovered from bursting into tears, knew what was wrong, went to the surgery to get a prescription, took it to the chemists and brought the medicines round to me. Absolutely fantastic.

Then I moved house and new ones were not particularly helpful or friendly. Had an awful system of mass weighing so if you did want to talk to them about anything confidentially there was no opportunity. But I didn't really need to see them by then anyway.

LoveAngel · 28/06/2007 18:58

Thats how HV's should be, Edam.

I saw about 4 different ones after my son was born and they werre all next to useless. One told me to treat my mastitis with cabbage leaves (she told me I was making a fuss when Isaid I thought she should actually look at how swollen and sore my breasts were...). I ended up in A&E with a serious infection the following day. They ranged from mildly crap to absolutely bloody rude and annoying. After that, attending the baby clinic, I just found them unhelpful, really. I never really knew what their role was supposed to be. They never once told me anythign I didn't already know and weren't particularly kind, supportive types. Maybe I just had bad luck?

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