WWYD RE Health Visitor

squirrelchops

Make-it-3 wrote: »

Health Visitors are NOT medically qualified. Unfortunately, too many of them are obsessed with ticking off charts and spouting uninformed and out of date advice.

Health visitors are qualified nurses who then go on to health visiting as a speciality.

fluffnutter

Make-it-3 wrote: »

Health Visitors are NOT medically qualified. Unfortunately, too many of them are obsessed with ticking off charts and spouting uninformed and out of date advice.

Apparently they just go down the local bingo hall and find a few chuntering old dears who look like they know a bit about babies and who don't tuck into the Lambrini too often, give them a clipboard and tell them to turn up at the local Surestart centre at 9am Monday morning.

2littleMonkeys

I think the majority of HV's I have met have been far too medicalised, and are not BF friendly in the least, despite using the 'breast is best' slogan, their actions/ advice is usually contradictory.If you are concerned ask to be referred to your lactation consultant, they will be much more helpful with bf advice.
Low supply is totally different to milk transfer. If baby is having to work very hard to get to milk it can make them too tired to carry on feeding, but it can also be an indicator of tongue tie (amongst other things, but tt is getting much more common, and feeding an undiagnosed tt baby for 2 years, it is no joke) Most health care professionals are very uneducated on Tt, especially posterior tt's. this is why a lactation consultant may be more help. Not trying to diagnose over the Internet, but it is something to get checked by a trained professional rather than a standard mw.
Finally the new weight charts are based on ff and bf babies, but when you consider the breast feeding rates past 6 weeks, this still amounts to being based on ff babies. Kellymom.co.uk (? Or .com) has charts based on ebfbabies and are much more helpful (although the issue here is more the slow weight gain, rather than actual weight)
Ultimately trust your instincts. I get cross about how hcp's first advice is usually formula top ups, when there are lots of other ebf routes to take.

FBaby

Most health care professionals are very uneducated on Tt, especially posterior tt's. this is why a lactation consultant may be more help. Not trying to diagnose over the Internet, but it is something to get checked by a trained professional rather than a standard mw.

This made me laugh. What are 'standard' midwife if not trained professionals? Lactation consultants are no more professional, they just passed an exam to give further advice on lactations but it doesn't make them more professional!

Jobseeeker

Please listen to HV and pediatrician. They are not nazis or Hitlers and they do have qualifications!!! A lot of the "breast is best brigade" on here have their own agenda.

2littleMonkeys

It may make you laugh, but I find it quite sad. Many MW only have very basic breast feeding knowledge/ training. A lactation consultant is a professional trained in lactation (funny that) whereas most MW are not. I am not slating MW, just pointing out that unless they choose BF support as an area of interest, and continue their CPD in that area, they aren't always the best people to give you information on BF.

Tenyearstogo

2littleMonkeys wrote: »

It may make you laugh, but I find it quite sad. Many MW only have very basic breast feeding knowledge/ training. A lactation consultant is a professional trained in lactation (funny that) whereas most MW are not. I am not slating MW, just pointing out that unless they choose BF support as an area of interest, and continue their CPD in that area, they aren't always the best people to give you information on BF.

Professionally trained? Is there a recognised qualification and governing body for 'lactation consultants'? Who are they accountable too?

Toto

2littleMonkeys wrote: »

It may make you laugh, but I find it quite sad. Many MW only have very basic breast feeding knowledge/ training. A lactation consultant is a professional trained in lactation (funny that) whereas most MW are not. I am not slating MW, just pointing out that unless they choose BF support as an area of interest, and continue their CPD in that area, they aren't always the best people to give you information on BF.

Do you even have the first idea of what midwife training is all about? Do you know how many hours midwives spend with new mums on wards supporting them with breastfeeding? How about the 3am calls to go on a home visit to support a new breastfeeding mum in community. Or the breastfeeding clinics or the antenatal classes midwives run?


Do you know that they have multiple mandatory study days per year on breastfeeding. All midwives specialise in breastfeeding, all of them, it's a core part of the job. And yes I will concede that perhaps things aren't perfect and on a very busy ward with some poorly mums or babies things may seem as if the midwife doesn't want to spend hours supporting breastfeeding. But, I can assure you that for the majority this isn't the case, However workload has to be prioritised and there should be support staff who are equally as well trained in breastfeeding to spend the time necessary.


I think lactation consultants do a fine job but please do not tell me that midwives are not as well trained and cannot provide adequate breastfeeding support.

Gillyx

I don't think it's just on the ward to be fair. I had so many midwives, ward, ones coming to my home, health visitors, and all I kept hearing time and time again was about my sons lazy latch, I asked about tongue tie and he was checked by at least 4 or 5 different health professionals, over the period of 2-3 weeks. I was asked by one HV why I was wasting my time expressing as it wasn't a long term solution and it was obvious he wasn't going to feed.

Took to paed about other issues and bam, lip and tongue tie, which they wouldn't cut as he wasn't exclusively breast fed.

I'm not saying all midwives, health visitors, or health trusts are the same but for me that was a major fail for breastfeeding and I've said before on these boards, if I'm ever in the same situation I will be looking into seeing a lactation consultant.

On the whole though I cant fault the treatment I got from the midwives in hospital, they did try there best to get my son on the breast, but like everything else, too much work and not enough of them, my ward was rammed from the minute I entered until the minute I left and they seemed to have skeleton staff so I think they done the best they could.

FBaby

2littleMonkeys wrote: »

It may make you laugh, but I find it quite sad. Many MW only have very basic breast feeding knowledge/ training. A lactation consultant is a professional trained in lactation (funny that) whereas most MW are not. I am not slating MW, just pointing out that unless they choose BF support as an area of interest, and continue their CPD in that area, they aren't always the best people to give you information on BF.

It's your choice of words which are wrong. I am guessing you are trying to say that these consultants (mainly midwives) trained in lactation have more knowledge and expertise in regards to lactation than standardly trained mw. Fair enough, but for one, referring to these trained mw as consultant is VERY misleading. They are not 'consultants' in the traditional used medical term, and they are no more 'professional' than other midwives.

This is what annoys me about these groups that come across as militant. They use boosting acronyms to lure people in believing they are more than what they really are so that people take every word of what they say for gospel. I have no doubt that they are hugely valuable for those who are looking for a midwife with more indepth knowledge of lactation, but no need to convince anyone they are better than anyone else in their field.