Faith in Health Visitors Restored (Partially)

Did I just say that?

You may remember that I haven’t had the best experiences with health visitors. My post birth care was a bit spotty to say the least, and the HV I often saw at our GP’s office continually worried me about LLC’s weight – to the point that I hadn’t been back to her since writing this rant.

I was thus surprised to get a message from yet another HV about a week ago, inviting us in for LLC’s 8-12 month checkup. I thought she was due for a checkup of some sort alongside the immunizations she had last week, but I hadn’t got around to finding her a new HV. The thought of them alone put me off.  The clinic at our GP has since closed and I didn’t want to take LLC back to that miserable old HV anyway.

Anyhow, I think all children from our GP’s surgery have been referred to this new clinic and that’s how this new HV, we’ll call her Alice, found me.

Alice was a breath of fresh air. She didn’t lack “the human element” and was relatively young with two young children. She had a great approach with LLC and actually seemed to like children! She was considerate, thorough, informative when I asked her questions and – amazingly for me – didn’t gawp when LLC’s weight measured in at just over 16lbs. She even praised me for breastfeeding LLC up to now (though we’ve just wound that down – another post) and considered LLC’s weight within the context of her diet, height, personality, activity….(and pointed out that LLC has more or less stayed just above or below the 2 percentile weight line since birth - it just appears to be her natural line).

I finally felt like I was talking to someone who looked at LLC for who she was, not just as an outlier on the weight charts. I finally felt like I was talking someone who understood, and who was supportive and reassuring rather than scaremongering.

So maybe not all HVs are that bad. The following week I also heard from a friend about a positive visit to a HV with her also small young son. Maybe if you sift through the mire, or maybe through the luck of the draw, they are out there and I should not have tarred them ALL with the same brush.