Tongue tie?

HoosOnFirst

if anyone wants to share experiences I am starting a thread.

I am having trouble breastfeeding and the current theory is my nipples being a tough shape plus a potential tongue tie of our little girl.

We are seeing a specialist tomorrow and I'm hopeful resolving this will help.

Has anyone else experienced this and how did it all turn out?

I felt so guilty that our girl essentially didn't eat for the first 2 days of life. It's awful feeling. I am pumping and formula feeding for now and baby is improving. Hoping tongue tie issue will continue to fix the breastfeeding issue!

HayesRN13

My daughter was complete tongue tie, we also had to see a ENT specialist when she was a couple days old to see if she needed it "fixed". She ended up feeding just fine so nothing was done. She is still tied to this day (12 years).. If they ended up needing to fix it as an infant, it would have been a surgery and she would of had to be put under which made me really nervous. As she is older, it's a very quick procedure done in a dental office, they numb up the area and clip the lingual frenum, no stitches nothing.... So I'm letting her decide now that she's older and it doesn't impact her life at all. Also, it is possible for your LOs tie to fix it self, it simply breaks and that's it (that's what I was hoping for mine)... So not much help except I would say just because she's tied isn't necessarily causing the feeding problems? And maybe it will fix itself?

HayesRN13

^^ it's hard to determine within the few weeks if the feeding problems would be from the tie, since they are just learning and it takes time for both mom and baby.. Hang in there, i know it's tough!

JessHeppell

HayesRN13 said:

My daughter was complete tongue tie, we also had to see a ENT specialist when she was a couple days old to see if she needed it "fixed". She ended up feeding just fine so nothing was done. She is still tied to this day (12 years).. If they ended up needing to fix it as an infant, it would have been a surgery and she would of had to be put under which made me really nervous. As she is older, it's a very quick procedure done in a dental office, they numb up the area and clip the lingual frenum, no stitches nothing.... So I'm letting her decide now that she's older and it doesn't impact her life at all. Also, it is possible for your LOs tie to fix it self, it simply breaks and that's it (that's what I was hoping for mine)... So not much help except I would say just because she's tied isn't necessarily causing the feeding problems? And maybe it will fix itself?

i was tongue tied as a child and had to get mine cut as it was affecting my speech, i couldnt even touch my tongue to the roof of my mouth. when getting it cut i was put under, and given stitches. dont remeber if it was done at a dental office(this was like 10 years ago now) so not sure if things have changed or its just a location thing.

ETA: my mom was also able to breastfeed me no problem from what she said.

medicmomma6115

Are you positive it's the tongue tie? Have you tried a nipple shield?

HayesRN13

JessHeppell said:

HayesRN13 said:

My daughter was complete tongue tie, we also had to see a ENT specialist when she was a couple days old to see if she needed it "fixed". She ended up feeding just fine so nothing was done. She is still tied to this day (12 years).. If they ended up needing to fix it as an infant, it would have been a surgery and she would of had to be put under which made me really nervous. As she is older, it's a very quick procedure done in a dental office, they numb up the area and clip the lingual frenum, no stitches nothing.... So I'm letting her decide now that she's older and it doesn't impact her life at all. Also, it is possible for your LOs tie to fix it self, it simply breaks and that's it (that's what I was hoping for mine)... So not much help except I would say just because she's tied isn't necessarily causing the feeding problems? And maybe it will fix itself?

i was tongue tied as a child and had to get mine cut as it was affecting my speech, i couldnt even touch my tongue to the roof of my mouth. when getting it cut i was put under, and given stitches. dont remeber if it was done at a dental office(this was like 10 years ago now) so not sure if things have changed or its just a location thing.

ETA: my mom was also able to breastfeed me no problem from what she said.

Right, they will evaluate at birth to determine feeding problems, and then later to determine any speech problems .. She luckily had none

knwilliams01

We had LO's frenulum clipped while we were still in the hospital. It took literally 5 minutes and there wasn't even a spot of blood. It greatly improved her tongue range of motion.

klkonwi

We clip them all the time at the hospital 1-2 days after birth.

HayesRN13

knwilliams01 said:

We had LO's frenulum clipped while we were still in the hospital. It took literally 5 minutes and there wasn't even a spot of blood. It greatly improved her tongue range of motion. </blockquote

Sounds like your LO's must have been minor, especially if anyone but an ENT did it that early and at that small... They must not have had to clip near any of the nerves
#:-S

HayesRN13

@klkonwi .. Who clips them??? This is unheard of in Cali lol, I can see the minor ties.. As it is very simple and can be done in a dental office.. But a severe tie?

klkonwi

The pediatrician.

HayesRN13

Interesting..

klkonwi

They just take them back to nicu and we assist. It's never been a big deal. We put pressure after with gauze and I haven't seen one bleed too much. Maybe I haven't seen a "severe" one. Only been there for 4 years.

HayesRN13

Ya that's how it is on older kids in the dental office, they just don't do babies that simply here.. I wish they did! Get it over with

esampson1983

My LO has tongue tie but at this point it is not affecting feeding so I am not going to intervene.

HayesRN13

esampson1983 said:

My LO has tongue tie but at this point it is not affecting feeding so I am not going to intervene.

That's exactly how I felt with my daughter, they kept saying they could do it anyway... But I didn't want to do something unnecessary. We watched and had all the proper evaluations done (feeding, speech) and she never needed intervention

auburnmamma

DS was born with one and he couldn't get a deep latch. We went to pediatric ENT for a consult the day we were discharged. He clipped it in office. He used lidocaine to numb the area.

henrytviii

klkonwi said:

They just take them back to nicu and we assist. It's never been a big deal. We put pressure after with gauze and I haven't seen one bleed too much. Maybe I haven't seen a "severe" one. Only been there for 4 years.

My son was tongue tied and hospital here said exactly this. Top rated hospital with baby friendly breastfeeding focus, major metro area. They did say the really thick ones go to pediatric dentist and they use a laser but they said nothing about putting baby under. We had a 5 day appointment because of jaundice so decided to wait until then and he had by that point broken or loosened his own tongue tie. He still nurses with a bit of a biting motion but if I pull out his lower lip it gets to bearable. They assured me the clipping is quick and heals almost right away. I was planning on clipping if it would have helped with nursing. Look at American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations. Good luck with everything, so glad you are getting in to see LC. Schedule a follow up right away if they will let you. Kellymom.com is a great resource if you want to do more research.

HoosOnFirst

Thanks everyone! I think many of you are right that this not the the answer to our breastfeeding issue. It's probably one of several things working in concert against us. We will see what ENT says today. We do know the procedure would be done in office and is fast - just local anesthesia and is done frequently in our region of the U.S.

KaLikeAWind

I'm glad you asked this because I've seen this in the may boards when I was lurking, and at my baby care and feeding class the nurse said that they don't do anything about it generally unless it 'severely impedes' feeding. Which sounded weird to me, and now reading all these replies above, still sounds a little weird to me. Good to know that you *can* just wait until later, but I had been wondering about this, too.

HoosOnFirst

Hey ladies just got back from specialist. He confirmed tongue tie and did the cut right then and there, took 3 minutes. He said it should improve feeding but also will help with speech when she starts to talk. I was a wreck watching but baby ate a bottle within minutes and now she's just sleeping.

harpyogi

Hope it has helped! Way more traumatic for mom than baby. I was a wreck when my son had his tongue tie released a week ago, but he just cried a bit after then nursed and went into his milk coma. It takes time for baby to figure out their new tongue. The days after his release feeding was rough for us- super painful for me until we went to the lactation consultant and relearned how to latch. She discovered he also has a really bad lip tie and they didn't get all of the tongue tie so we are back to the ENT next week. Hoping second time around will do the trick and help him be less frustrated and me less in pain!

devyns2nd

Glad it was a simple fix!!!

dancegurl1118

@hoodoll82 yay! Hope it helped!

@hayesrn the ENT residents come and clip ours in the well baby nursery if the pediatricians recommend it for being severe enough. Much easier to watch than a circ

HayesRN13

^^ I hate doing circs! (

HoosOnFirst

It's crazy, I haven't tried to bf yet, but baby's first bottle after getting home, I can tell she's eating that differently. Mouth is positioned differently on the bottle and no longer sucking in air!

AlyLynn07

I work in a Pediatric ENT office. They clip tongue ties in clinic every day. Usually babies are a few days or weeks old and no anesthesia is needed. It takes about 15 seconds to do and they literally just use small scissors. There can be some bleeding, but it's minor. We usually encourage parents to feed baby right afterwards to apply pressure to the area and stop any bleeding. It's usually very well tolerated. Some babies don't even cry. Most babies just hate having the Dr. put their (gloved) fingers in their mouth to clip it. I will definitely do it if it seems like it's affecting baby's feeding!

For tongue-tied kids who come in after about 6 weeks of age (and are therefore usually feeding pretty well), it can be more difficult to perform the procedure in office due as the tongues/vessels supplying them have gotten bigger and you can have more bleeding. If there is a concern about speech development, etc going forward, the recommendation in our office is usually to wait until at least 9 months of age. At that age, it's generally considered safer to have a general anesthetic. I know recommendations and protocols may vary from place to place, but just wanted to offer up what info I have!

fridaysdance

For those who might be interested in having the procedure later in life for their children, let me just warn you it can be more painful after the fact. My husband had his tongue tie fixed as a teenager to help with speech and pronunciation issues and was miserable for a few days.