Your Health Visitor will provide you with specialist up-to-date advice and support on many health and wellbeing topics such as:

• your own support after the birth of your baby
• child development – sleep, speech and language, behaviour and school readiness
• assistance with the various aspects of being a parent
• providing information on childhood immunisations
• breastfeeding, formula feeding and weaning
• promoting oral health
• minor ailments and safety – reducing accidents
• promoting good mental health and wellbeing of the whole family

Visit the Institute of Health Visiting website for helpful factsheets and expert advice on key areas of looking after your new baby from when they are born to when they go to school. Written by experts in the field and are based on up-to-date research and the experience and knowledge of real life health visitors working across the UK.

The health visitor will contact you between 32-34 weeks of pregnancy to introduce the service.

Following the birth of your baby your Midwife will continue to visit you, usually until your baby is around 10 days old. Your care is then transferred to your Health Visitor who will arrange to visit you between 11–14 postnatal days.

Please feel free to ask your health visitor any questions you have at any time. Health visiting teams spend a lot of time on home visits but all health visiting teams have answer phones and will aim to get back to you as soon as possible.

If you have concerns and cannot get in touch with your health visitor immediately, contact your GP surgery or NHS24 on 111.

Whilst every effort is made to deliver the pattern of home visits described in the Universal Health Visiting Pathway, there may be occasions when this is not possible. You may be offered a clinic or telephone contact in place of a home visit. However, your Health Visitor will always respond to any concerns you may have about your child’s health and development and can be contacted at any time via telephone. We aim to return all phone calls within 48 hours.

Pathway Resources

The early years have an impact upon the future health and wellbeing of infants and children. Health professionals, in particular Health Visitors, play a vital role in supporting children and families in the early years up to the age of five by ensuring that families’ needs are appropriately assessed and responded to in a person centred and supportive way.

The Universal Health Visiting Pathway has therefore been refreshed as part of the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 and national GIRFEC approach to provide appropriate, consistent and person centred support for children and families.

To support this, relevant information is provided to parents throughout the pathway and some of these are available here.

Pregnant women and families on low income who have children aged up to three years old might be entitled to Best Start benefits. For more information, please visit:

• Best Start Grant and Best Start Foods – mygov.scot
• Best Start Foods – Citizens Advice Scotland for Best Start Foods

Useful Links

• Ready steady baby
• Best Beginnings videos – Baby Friendly Initiative (unicef.org.uk)
• Off to a Good Start opens a new window
• Pregnancy and baby vaccinations up to 13 months post birth opens a new window
• Vitamin D and you (healthscotland.com)
• The NHS minor ailment service at your local pharmacy opens a new window
• Building A Happy Baby
• Caring for your Baby at Night opens a new window
• Safer sleep advice – Lullaby trust opens a new window

Useful Links

• Baby, I love you
• Steps to deal with stress
• Meningitis baby watch postcard
• Lullaby Trust safe sleep advice
• Caring for your baby at night
• Pregnancy and baby vaccinations up to 13 months post birth
• BCG and your baby: protecting babies against TB
• The NHS minor ailment service at your local pharmacy
• Handle with care
• Longer lasting contraception
• Keeping your child safe at home
• Best Beginnings videos – Baby Friendly Initiative (unicef.org.uk)
• Protect your baby’s natural head shape

Useful Links

• Drinks for babies and young children
• Immunisations pre birth to 13 months

Useful Links

• Fun First Foods: an easy guide to introducing solid food

Useful Links

• Make it Safe
• Breastfeeding and returning to work

Useful Links

• Ready Steady Toddler opens a new window
• Positive parenting
• Childsmile Practice: help to look after your child’s teeth

Useful Links

• Immunisations for 2 year olds
• Positive parenting
• Head lice: Information for parents
• Fluoride varnish for children

Useful Links

• Immunisations for 3 years and 4 months to 5 year olds 

During your first postnatal visit your Health Visitor will give you a Personal Child Health Record book (known as the Red Book).

This is an important document where your baby’s growth and development, as well as any immunisations given, will be recorded. If you have any other medical appointments including your child’s immunisations, you should take this record with you to provide other professionals with all relevant information. This information is also kept on your child’s NHS electronic health record which the Health Visitor updates after each contact with you and your child. This record is held within NHS Forth Valley’s secure electronic database.

Health Visitors work in partnership with you. If information needs to be shared (for example to make a referral to a Speech and Language Therapist) your Health Visitor will discuss this with you and seek your agreement for relevant information to be shared. The only time a Health Visitor may need to share information without your consent is where they have child safety concerns. Under child protection legislation all professionals have a legal obligation to raise any concerns they may have regarding a child’s safety as outlined in the National Guidance for Child Protection in Scotland (2021).

Giving your child the best possible start in life is a priority for all practitioners. Everyone working with children and families uses the Getting it right for every child (GIRFEC) approach to promoting, supporting and safeguarding the wellbeing of your child whether they require routine services or have additional needs. The GIRFEC policy says that a Named Person can be made available to families and children up to the age of 18 or until they leave school if this is after they are 18.

The Named Person is a single point of contact for children and families and is available to provide advice, information, support and help to access services or to raise a matter with other service providers to help address a child’s wellbeing needs.

For most children, before they go to school, the Health Visitor or Family Nurse will undertake the role of the Named Person. For school aged children the Named Person will usually be a promoted teacher in your child’s school. There is no obligation on children and families to accept the offer of advice or support from a Named Person.