xp: tongue tied

Discordia1030 · August 2010

Does anyone have a LO who is/was tongue-tied (short frenulum)? Did you get it fixed? At what age? How did LO react to the procedure vs how did you handle it? How drastically did their latch change?

Back story- DS has trouble getting a wide latch about 1/3 of the time and has left my nips nice and sore and cracked. We checked with the pedi and he's slightly tongue tied. She said to give it till next wed and if he doesn't have any latch improvement/ my pain doesn't go away then we should look into getting it fixed. Any insight or opinions would be really appreciated! Thanks.

lindac1 · August 2010

My DS was tongue-tied. It was a LC who told me - I didn't know what a tongue tie was. All I knew, is BF was very painful! Pedi said it was mild, not to worry about it. But, BF was very painful, I had lots of cracking/bleeding and DS could not get a good latch because he couldn't get his tongue where it needed to be. He was trying so hard, though, that I didn't want to just give up.

At 6 weeks, LC recommended a specialist - ENT. I opted to see her since the LC and my Pedi were of different opinions (one saying it was mild and not a problem and another (LC) saying it was the cause of my pain and problems). I took DS to see the specialist who said it was actually pretty severe. She clipped the frenulum right there in the office. It took probably all of 30 seconds, very minimal blood, DS latched on immediately (and I noticed it was the first time it was not painful) and ate very calmly. He was perfectly fine after the procedure. Honestly, I think it was harder on me than him. It took us a week or two to get things right - the specialist said DS would need to relearn how to latch and she was right.

We are now almost 6 mos. in and BF is going great. I don't think I'd have made it this far had I not corrected the tongue tie. The best decision I made was to get the specialist's opinion.

Good luck - and congratulations on your new baby!

Lurker216 · August 2010

My DS is currently 6 weeks old. When he was born I got cracked nips at 4 days and mastitis at 8 days. At his 2 wk appt he hadn't regained his birth weight and we were told to supplement. My midwife noticed he had a tongue tie. When we asked the pedi about it he said it shouldn't be a problem. We then met with an LC who thought the tongue tie was the basis of most of our problems. At 4 wks he had his tongue clipped.

It took him about a week to relearn how to suck correctly. But in the past week we revisited the LC and he was able to take in twice as much breastmilk as he was prior to the clipping. He's now gaining weight without supplements and I'm breastfeeding pain free and without a nipple shield.

For the clipping they put a little local anesthetic (similar to baby orajel) under his tongue. It was literally 30 secs and he could eat immediately after. He was fine within 5 minutes.

Discordia1030 · September 2010

Thanks for the responses ladies. DH and I talked it over and since there hadn't been any improvement over the weekend, we called the doc mon morn. DS had it done this morning and its amazing how not only his latch has completely changed, but how different he looks with his new tongue movement!

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