What does the health visitor do post-birth?

[Ko]

Evening all

I've been told that after baby is born, a health visitor should visit you. Could anyone tell me please how often they visit and what they do? Many thanks

K xx

[Pickle]

With both children I've only ever had one visit at home from a Health Visitor. They filled in necessary pages in the "red book" which are then supposed to be sent off (but in both cases, weren't, were lost), give you a bit of general "Babies for dummies" advice etc.

As for what do they do... in my experience they give rubbish advice, seem hell bent on making you doubt your maternal instincts, and are best avoided at all costs. But maybe that's just me*!

* must step away from keyboard, HV's are my absolute bug bear. Amongst the words of wisdom I've had in the past 3 years are "you should try giving him high fat foods like chips" when being given weaning advice for my then 7 month old, and "can he talk?" when doing a 2 year old check with my 2 year old in front of her chatting away non stop. Absolute waste of space! Grrrrrrrrr.

[Belle]

Hi,

agree with Pickle. They come at around 10 days post birth I think - our's just turned up! Then they should invite you to baby clinic etc, give you details of where it is - you can go there to get your baby weighed and general advice. However both my midwife and my GP told me that if I was every genuinely worried or had a serious question about my baby I'd be better off going to the GP which is what I've always done. Think I've been to clinic about 5 times in 9.5 months. You'll get tonnes of good advice on here too of course!

Bx

[snowboarder]

Yep yep, they turn up once, unannounced, during post birth blur. Fill in forms. Mine said 'well done mum!!' and wrote 'baby alert' and 'observed breastfeeding on demand' in the red book but bubs was sleeping on me the entire time.

I too must restrain myself! I've been to baby clinic 3 times in 7 months and mostly come away upset/annoyed. They are just not as helpful as you would hope. Sorry that's not really what you asked is it?!?

[amydown]

My experience has been similar (baby's now 6 weeks old). Was told by my lovely midwives from the Lanes practice (who are amazing by the way) that the HV should contact us within 2 weeks of the baby being born. I didn't hear from anyone and after 3 weeks, the midwife asked me to call them directly. Left 2 voicemails and 2 days later, heard from the HV.

She eventually visited twice and similar to other mums' experience, filled out some sections of the Red Book and advised me to visit the weighing clinic when I want to.

I was a bit disappointed but put it down to the fact that it was such a stark contrast to the lovely care I had received from the Lanes midwives who visited me at least twice a week (and on the phone if necessary - I called them up in tears at least twice) after the birth of our boy until they discharged me when he was 3 weeks old.

[EDmummy]

A HV will usually visit at least once to see if all is fine. If they are concerned about anything (early signs of PND or baby failing to thrive) they will book in a few more visits. If all is fine they tend to direct you to your local practice baby clinic for weigh-ins etc. They should not be undervalued and unfortunately in some parts of Southwark they are needed to offer more support than in others.

[Ko]

many thanks for the advice! basically if they don't turn up, i won't worry too much about it!

just didn't want to miss out on anything. i'm with dmc and i believe they do baby clinic at townley road but i can just ask them.

many thanks once again xxx

[Pickle]

Interesting to read your post Snowboarder. My son's red book makes interesting reading - my son was tongue tied (although this wasn't picked up until he was a couple of months old), and when my HV arrived to see us I was in a lot of pain, with bleeding nipples and a son who had lost quite a lot of weight. In the red book she wrote "Mum and baby happy, breastfeeding going well and baby thriving".

Ko - the DMC baby clinic is on Wednesdays at Townley Road, from about 12.30pm I think. With your first child I think it is important to go along every now and then, even if only to get the baby weighed - but just don't take too much to heart. By all means take what the HV's say on board as they should technically know what they're talking about, but always trust your instincts and have the confidence to question what you're told.

P x

[Ko]

thanks for the advice pickle! xxx

[Ann]

Well I found my Health Visitor an invaluable support when I had my children. They don't ( and aren't supposed) to make the amount of home visits that midwives do especially case-loading midwives like The Lanes. Health Visitors have a huge case-load and have to deal with a lot of 'At Risk' children as well.

Please don't underestimate their workload.

[snowboarder]

Whilst it's well known that HV's are busy etc I think it is however reasonable to think that they might be some form of support/guidance, even to people whose babies are not 'at risk'. But they seem to just tick boxes at the initial visit - and I was left with the feeling that they had looked at us - nice well spoken couple, chubby baby, nice house and thought bonus we don't need to worry about them. And actually there have been times I would have loved to go somewhere for a bit of help and advice but there is no-one apart from friends and relatives and HERE and my particularly lovely ante natal teacher who has helped me alot - totally in her own time - so no so called 'professional' help. They do seem to be a law to themselves - a friend went to have her baby weighed and commented she was getting very little sleep as her baby kept rolling over and waking up and crying - seems common - HV said - oh - he's rolling over because he's hungry, you must feed him! What? Every half an hour?

Sorry Ko - HV=emotive subject!

[Pickle]

I agree Snowboarder, that's exactly how we felt. We'd ticked the "not likely to be at risk" boxes in their eyes so were effectively put to one side. The thing that REALLY annoyed me in the early days was that in the first 6 weeks, when I was at my wits end trying to figure out what our breastfeeding problem was, I rang the HV many times, left many messages pleading for help and nobody rang me back. When I finally found the correct route to Kings and had his tongue tie fixed, I then got a rather irate call from a HV effectively telling me off - "you should have come to us and told us there was a problem, we don't like it when the first we hear of it is a letter from Kings saying your baby had surgery".

Emotive subject for me too!

While I appreciate there are people more "at risk" than me, it would be nice to feel that there was support there if I needed it, and I never felt that way with baby #1 (hence with baby #2 I've simply stayed away altogether).

[Dulwich Born And Bred]

My health visitor just phoned up out of the blue and said she was on her way up! I was quite surprised as I was not expecting that, I was expecting a letter and an appointment date.

She came up, chatted lots, I wear a breast feeding apron as I am a bit shy when it comes to breast feeding and she told me am I only wearing it because she is there? I said 'No. I wear it regardless' I did think it was weird she asked that because it is none of her business whether I want her to see my boobs or not.

I have only ever been to the clinic once because my son was ill, my doctor said he was fine ( but has since apologised to me for what happened after) my HV just laughed at me and said my son had wind when I said to her that I was concerned about him because of his cries, the rash of his skin and so on. But she actually LAUGHED at me and just wrote he had wind in the red book, well, I took him to Kings A&E and good thing I did because he was seriously ill with an infection, was in horrible pain and very nearly died. We spent quite a few days in the hospital overnight, it was not nice and I felt such a bad mummy that I didn't take him to the hospital straight away because I listened to my doctor and HV even though I knew something was not right. Since then I have found it hard to go to the clinic. I shall be going on Tuesday as I am curious to know how much he weighs and I shall certainly be telling the HV what happened to my son after she laughed at us and dismissed him as having wind.

[Keef]

Mrs Keef likes the HV who came to see her, as she is an older lady, who is very kind, and seems to know what she's talking about, but also realises that she has limits, rather than just guessing at things. I think this is a problem, a lot of the time, HVs start to believe that they are expert health professionals.

When she's been to the clinic to have the baby weighed, she's not been impressed with any of the other HVs she's met.

[lorraineliyanage]

The HV will make sure you are breastfeeding, then fill in the for your child's BCG immunisation. And they will weigh the baby. That's all we had!

[BellendenBear]

She asked if anyone in the house smokes, I said no, she ticked a box and gave me a leaflet about smoking. She asked if I took drugs, I said no, she ticket a box and gave me a leaflet about drugs. She asked if I was claiming benefits, I said no, she ticket a box and gave me a leaflet about benefits....

Then she observed me breastfeeding which I thought was going pretty well after helpful advice from a midwife, my baby seemed happy and was gaining weight. She shook her head, told me I was doing it all wrong, completely contradicted everything I had been told at the breastfeeding workshop and generally treated my boobs like they were public property.

I have been banned from seeing our HV by Mr Bear. He got fed up with me seeing her then phoning/texting him at work in a frustrated verging on tearful rage because her solution to every question was to breastfeed on demand'.

To give them the benefit of the doubt, HVs in this area are probably under-staffed and having to prioritise their workload to support at risk families, those with massive social needs and those who do not have access to Internet, NCT or other means of support. I just think it's a shame that so many of us have had the feeling that they turn up with their own tick box agenda and leaving us feeling frustrated or inadequate.

[toast]

I agree. My first HV saw us once and said she probably would not see us again as they had some mums with massive problems. Took it as a complement. Did get a lot of mixed messages/ advice though, guess there is more than one way to raise a baby.

[buggie]

HV's are hugely understaffed - if the ratios of HV's to families was similar to that of MW's to families am sure the service would be better.

Unable to find the exact ratio for Southwark, but in Lambeth the HV to child ratio is 1:894 compared to County Durham's 1:165

(ref)

Despite this, very little funding is availabe for increasing numbers/training for nurses wanting to become HV's and many HV's are disillusioned as all they have time to do is to try and keep up with families causing concern/with additional needs.

It is disappointing to hear this - something I'm well aware of from the families I come into contact with, it could be worth looking into contacting Southwark Primary Care Trust PALS (patient advocacy and liason service) if you are unhappy/have inconsistant advice/care as this would highlight problems and would force them to further investigate.

[Belle]

I did talk about it to a Labour campaigner who came round a few months back - think they were knocking on doors asking about local issues etc. No idea if it went any further though.

[The Nappy Lady]

With Pickle & Snowboarder, (not read the entire thread),

When I had my second, who was 75th Centile and grew so fast the Midwife weighed her twice at a week old because she couldn't believe the weight gain, the HV then on arrival a week or two later proceeded to give me a load of advice on breastfeeding, which clearly was not needed, and spent an hour telling me stuff I already knew. When I pointed out this was my 2nd baby she said "Oh, I thought it was your first, so brought all this info...." but carried on anyway! A total waste of an hour of my life.

They did ring me the other day to invite me to her 8 month check...I pointed out she is 13 months old and that I have no concerns, so not much point doing it now and they said "yes, we are a bit behind"...sigh....

What terrifies me about all this is that there must be people falling through the gaps that DO need help and support....or more....

Molly

[Moos]

Appreciate that HVs are hugely over-worked, but frankly they don't come across well. Sorry to say it as it must be frustrating for paediatric medical professionals like buggie to read. The stories related above are depressingly familiar to me - my relationship with my HV started with her saying casually within a minute of meeting me 'Oh yes, he has colic". Of course I believed her and was desperately upset. Luckily, he didn't have colic - was just windy as a tiny baby, and eventually got over it. She then went on maternity leave and wasn't replaced so there was no HV for most of my son's babyhood. He got his 8-month check after months of chasing when he was a year old. He is yet to have his 2 year check, in spite of months of chasing. Pretty poor all round, but I used friends and breastfeeding clinics for general baby advice, and the GP when he was ill.

[KBN]

Just to weigh in with a different perspective. I'm based more North Dulwich way, so this may be the difference, but my HVs are great. There are 2 attached to the practice. One came to see me shortly before birth to introduce herself, and then again about 2 weeks after birth, where she was helpful, if repeating stuff I had been told by others.

Our baby clinic can be a bit overcrowded and perfunctory, but I have left messages for HV twice. Each time she has phoned back promptly and talked me through issues (variously sleeping and weaning) for at least 20 mins. Far from just giving pat advice repeating NHS recommendations, I was told at 5 months, after baby seemed v hungry, kept waking and had poor weight gain to wean early - she is prepared to use her own mind. I also have a terrible sleeper, and really feel as tho HV engages with me in thinking about what might help - made me describe a night and day in detail, and gave good tips.

I have been frustrated at times with long waits for weigh ins but overall think these guys are doing a great job in tricky circumstances.However, in my NCT class, my HV seems by far the best and the others have some terrible stories, as do people above. I just thought I'd add that mine have been a help, for a different angle...

[Moos]

It's good to hear a positive point of view. I don't think we can blame the individual HVs, who are bounced from pillar to post and may be a little short with anxious mothers of clearly healthy and relatively (well, relatively in my case!) well-looked after babies. These are trained nurses with additional training and skills specific to health visiting, who are required to spend their entire time filling out forms. Must be very depressing. And for those who still want to do it in spite of the offputting amount of admin, there are few places and little budget.

[candj]

Despite having both of my children privately, I was surprised to have a HV visit me at all. She was absolutely lovely and was also the same for both children (I called her the second time because I wanted her again). She also kept in touch to do the childrens' 8 month, 2 year, etc, review, was very supportive/interested with breastfeeding issues, children's development, our move abroad (!) and got back to me with any questions I had about jabs and all the other crazy questions I had in the early days of baby no 1. Am happy to pass on her details if you're allowed to request certain ones.

[ratty]

Our Health Visitor was great. She spent lots of time going through things with us and even taught us baby massage to help with Collic. Her name begins with L and she is a bit of a legend round here as it goes. A friend of mine's child had lieukaemia which was undiagnosed and it was partly down to this Health Visitor's tenancity and efforts that the hospital started to take the concerns seriously.

Invaluable imo!