what are your views on health visitors

[honeydew]

I have a pretty poor view of health visitors and wondering what others think. The two I've had have both been absolutely useless! They never followed up after the initial visits to my home directly after the birth of each of my children. They don't seem ever be easily available or provide any good advice that you couldn't get from family, friends, a doctor, health/parenting book or the internet. My health visitor last week phoned my husband's mobile twice and left a message she was "desperate" to contact me so that I could arrange for my baby to have her 12 month check. This was the first time I'd heard from her in a year! As an experienced mother, I just have the impression now that health visitors are there simply to check up on you! Does anyone else feel the same way or have you had more positive experiences?

Oh, and my HV does a baby massage class and the clinic is doing a class on behaviourial management starting this week. Will be interesting.

hi my hv is fab she has been really supportive of my 3 who all are milk intolerant, 1 has had problems with walking so she organised all the referal, she sorted out my youngest with her eyes, was really supportive with breastfeeding and has been great with my pnd with my 3rd! not to mention how great she has been about me HEing my eldest.

lots of others have had problems with her but i have found her to be really nice to us as a unit.

My HV told me my baby was failing to thrive as she was not moving up the chart quickly enough and wobbled a little on it. As it happens she was a breastfed baby, with a formula chart. Advised me my milk was not as calorific as it needed to me so should give DD bottle. DD would not take bottle, thankfully, and when she did, at 10 months or so, and was weaned, and ate like a horse, she still not not move up the charts quickly! Dr saw DD and said nothing wrong with her.

Stopped going after a while, the for first time i ages went back, just to check DD is doing ok (although I know she is) DD still small, can see her ribs even though she eats well, just how she is. The HV said, when I commented on her great appetite - thats good, but you need to make sure you dont over feed her, try not to compensate for her short stature by over feeding her or else she could develop weight problems as she grows. Neither you or your husband are tall people, and you husband is quite atocky. just accept she is going to be a small child . The same HV!

She also told me it was about time we thought about another baby, everyone else with babies DDs age are having their second babies now. Dont want to leave it too late. She told me, when I said DH had reservations at this stage, so we were going to wait a year or two, I could just come off the pill and tell Dh if he wants to have sex he has to take the chance of another baby

Our HV is rubbish, which is a shame because my mum was a HV for 20 years and I would hate to think that she had been that unhelpful to anyone.

Mine was useless and didn't seem to listen to a word I said. My husband and I were gobsmacked after her first home visit. Apart from weighing DS she did little else and gave poor, disinterested responses to my questions. It seemed like she couldn't wait to get out of there.

I can now go to drop in session and apart from relaying DS's weight, I've found they do little else. I get always different advice from each of them and don't see the point to them at all.

wolfear - did you have the same HV as me?

Absolutely deffo deffo USELESS IME

They need to learn about extremely prem babies and what they are going to be like when allowed to go home from NNU ITU

Mine knew NOTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!

In the end I completely ignored her and if I had any questions asked the NNU

HVs used to have to have been a midwife prior to being a HV. Not so now so they don't always have the experience that they would have gained from being a midwife.

My HV when ds was tiny was fab. Can't speak highly enough of her (Maisie, in Battersea, should anyone want to beat a path to her door).

I do take the point about HVs being pushed into child protection and away from supporting routine families. BUT that's still no excuse for giving untrue advice (the WHO six months weaning guideline only applies to developing countries etc. etc. - bollocks).

My HV gives dreadful advice re weight gain and breastfeeding (both to me and I've heard her with other people) and seems to have no clue about toddlers behaviour (expecting a 2 year old boy sit quietly while she talks to mummy after they'd been waiting for 45 mins with nothing to do). I just ignore her and get advice from MN/friends but it really worries me that other people will follow her advice

i had one visit who asked me to fill in a questionaire to find out if i had pnd. she then told that i was doing fine and gave me a number to call if i had any problems. never managed to get through to her on this number or see her again- dd is 9mnths. i usually went to my gp (who was the best)for problems.

i have recently moved to a new area, and received a call from a lovely lady who told me that the person assigned to be my new hv had left the previous mnth, and budget cuts means she will not be replaced. again i have been given a number to contact if i have any problems.

to be fair, i don't blame the hv per sa, i read somewhere that in parts of london you get 1 hv to 1000 babies/mother, which would explain (some of) their lax attitude.

Message withdrawn

Mine was lovely, very helpful and sympathetic. Came round in the afternoon of the day my DH went back to work to make sure I was coping on my own.

Also came out for sleep problems.And for starting solids.

And my cat loved her. He would sit on her bag and try to get her to take him away. To me, that indicates a generally sound person.

the one i have now seems very nice, but other than vaccinations, i don't tend to bother with her. I prefer being left alone to get on with it.

I find them a waste time, personally. If I have a medical question I'll ask it to a medical doctor. I've not yet received any advice from a HV which I didn't 1- already know or 2- disagree with. Like, fromage frasi is a good source of calcium. Umm, not it's not, it's loded with sugar. Plain old milk is a good source of calcium.

I know people who have had trouble with PND or family crisis issues have found them helpful. But, I have no experience with either of those here in the UK.

BugBearisBugBear on Fri 18-Apr-08 22:41:59
"Maybe useful for people who are very dim "

If not recognising that your child has a rare genetic disorder...yes, I suppose I am pretty dim. But hey, I am only as dim as the paediatric consultant

I have found them fine for minor problems but very little use if your child has a serious developmental disorder - because they are not involved in diagnosis they do nothing except tell you that 'all children are different, you mustn't worry'

And Athene, I'm afraid I've had some pretty weird advice from asking medical doctors.

From my first GP who wanted me to stop bf'ing and go into hospital to have my episiotomy scar restitched when dd was a tiny fft baby ("because the best gift you can give your baby is a father"- meaning fathers can only be expected to hang around mothers who look neat and pretty down below.)

to the paedicatric consultant who told us dd must have been sexually abused to think she can still be in pain from her ankles though her X-rays do not show any broken bones (we all know that the human body is made up of bone alone, don't we?).

I would add that I have met some apparently sane doctors too. But all the HVs I have met have appeared sane.

at your helpful unsolicited family planning advice, Pavlovthecat...

I have at various times by various HVs:

• been told to breastfeed a newborn no more than every 3 hours or ideally wait 4
• been asked, 8 days post c-section, to climb up on a chair and get a battery from our smoke alarm so she could put it in her scales to weigh dd. When I refused she said she couldn?t for H&S reasons.
• been told I shouldn?t hold dd while she slept (at 8 days?) in case she ?got used to it?
• been advised to stop breastfeeding in the night at 4 months old at night in case she ?got used to it?
• been told that if I didn?t wean onto 3 solid meals a day by 6 months she would have eating problems for life (this was only 3 years ago?)
• being asked at my daughter?s so-called 8 month check if she was weight bearing on her legs and babbling whilst dd (13 months old at the time) cruised round the furniture shouting ?mummy, mummy?
• been advised that leaving a 5 week old baby on his mat to cry was good exercise and babies need exercise esp fat ones (btw he was on the 75th percentile at the time and 91st for height)

I?m sure there are some decent ones out there, but I?ve yet to meet one. Haven?t bothered going back since the crying on the mat fiasco.

Hello! New on here and just wanted to add my little bit! Personally, my HV came round to do primary visit and hasn't been since. However, I go to local BF group and baby group which is run by my HV's so see them there. They are also easy to contact and have been very supportive with BF . Professionally, I have encountered the good, the bad and the ugly!! I think it's a bit of pot luck really. I also think it's fair to say that there aren't enough HV's and it must be difficult to offer the same level of service to all families when they struggle with huge caseloads! However, if you're not happy with their advice, you must always seek a second opinion or request to change HV's

Forgot to say, there are plenty of HV's out there who spout utter crap though! My friend's HV told her that her DS was obese (98th centile), would be obese in his adult life and to cut out one of his meals! Fortunately, my friend has more sense than this.

My first HV was awful. Her advice on helping DS to sleep was "sleep leads to sleep" she must have told me this avbout 20 times when I was close to tears with exhaustion of DS being up all day and night as a baby.

DS had some problems feeding to start with and I found BF very difficult and she was hopeless. I found the NCT helpline much more helpful. DS lost a lot of weight to begin with and took a while to regain it so as the mum of a PFB I did get him weighed once a week at the clinic to start with and she made a comment of "there's never been a baby weighed as much as your DS"

As I was sensitive adn worried about DS and had no idea of he was getting enough milk I liked to get him weighed so I knew he was growing. Soon after that I changed HV and now have one who is much more helpful but too busy to ever see us.

I think my first health "visitor" came to our house once and the second one has never visited us at all.

My HV was great, but she's the only one round here who knows anything about anything as far as I can see. She actually reads stuff and tries to keep up. Very good on BLW. The others round here seem patronising and ignorant, sorry to say. To sum them up: I went to one (and only one) talk for new mums led by a HV who in answer to a mum's question said 'Well, I don't know about that, but what I think is...' In other words, here's some utter crap I've just made up. (I did happen to know the answer she gave was crap, too.)

I've had such a mixed bag - having moved 8 times in 8 years and am now onto baby number 3. They all say different things. My current one doesn't listen to you and makes this extremely obvious when she asks something you've just told her!

mixed experiences - 1 who is really good but 2 that are hopeless ... dont listed to what I am saying and treat me like an idiot when I ask for a grownup conversation about my baby girl. Have felt really unsupported during 4 months of bad colic and very little sleep.