Comments on Analytical Armadillo - The Booby Whisperer: The Mild Tongue Tie

Really interesting to read this. My son had a '...

2012-01-06T22:11:46.168Z

Really interesting to read this. My son had a 'mild tongue tie' and I had conflicting advice from various medical professionals. The MW at the breast-feeding support group I went to said that it needed cutting, so I went to my GP - who said that they 'don't do that here'. I had such a nightmare with feeding - can remember sobbing in agony trying to feed him. After about 10 weeks things finally settled down. I'm sure it was the tongue tie though. Especially after reading this article.

my little man is 16 weeks. He makes lots of clicki...

2012-01-06T17:43:12.309Z

my little man is 16 weeks. He makes lots of clicking and spluttering noises as he feeds, he latches on and off a lot, feeds a bit better when 1/2 asleep and lying down, pukes up entire feeds at times. The latch looks ok from the outside -lower lip turn out and cheeks look normal, movement of ears etc. It looks like he has quite good tongue mobility, he can stick it out and shake it all about. I don't nkow how much mobility is needed towards the back but there is no obvious lack of movement. Feeding doesn't hurt me as he feeds but I do ssem to get sore more often than with other babies -a few bouts of thrush and 2 nasty cracks so far. He's gaining weight very well. I'm tandem feeding with his older brother so I suppose there is quite a lot more milk than I would have for one baby. He copes better when the flow is slower than during let down. We've had a LC have a look and the PHN. Both thought TT was not an issue. We've been feeding comfortably for a few weeks now -just the clicking is a little odd! Should I be looking to have him examined further for TT? Who would do that? Would it even need to be resloved when the difficulties we are having are minor at this stage?

Thanks for your wise words! I will talk about it w...

2012-01-06T16:11:15.415Z

Thanks for your wise words! I will talk about it with the Health Visitor again and see how we go from there!

Anon 1

Anon 1 - that would depend who you ask. If baby i...

2012-01-06T10:57:16.674Z

Anon 1 - that would depend who you ask. If baby is feeding/eating well, you would struggle for a rationale for division. But if she has so little lateral movement she cannot clean the corners of her mouth, it also means she cannot use them to clean her bottom teeth (or lick lips after a doughnut - or anything else that requires good tongue protrusion/lateral movement). Some people believe with exercises a frenulum can be stretched, whilst others believe this isn't so.
I believe with protrusion issues the main speech sounds to keep an eye is"th" (lots replace with "f" ie think = fink) because "th", often in the middle of a word when it is harder to co-ordinate the tongue quickly.
AA

Once again you hit the nail on the head. Mine coul...

2012-01-05T21:23:08.387Z

Once again you hit the nail on the head. Mine couldn't maintain a deep latch, shredded my nipples and bottle feeding was a total disaster with most of the milk lost to dribbles out of the sides of her mouth. "No tongue tie" my foot.

I got told by my health visitor that my little gir...

2012-01-05T20:57:10.965Z

I got told by my health visitor that my little girl has a tongue tie when she was 5 months old. We have been breastfeeding for 6+ months now and she's been thriving on it. She's also weaned on some solids now and is good with purees, lumpy purees and fingerfoods.

However I've noticed she has a 'heart-shaped' tongue. She can't stick her tongue out very far and never licks the corners of her mouth (which I've been told by the Health Visitor I should encourage by putting food in the corners of her mouth, but she doesn't do anything with that). Should I expect any problems in the future? Or does the fact that she's always been feeding well and now eats well, mean she is just fine?

Excellent article. My LO had a so-called mild tong...

2012-01-05T20:56:24.407Z

Excellent article. My LO had a so-called mild tongue tie but we were having problems with nursing. I insisted they do a frenulotomy and my momma instincts were right on. 2 hours after the procedure he latched on like a pro and we've never looked back.
On another note: one thing many medical professionals seem to ignore is the possibility of speech development problems later when some of these mild ties are left untreated.

sigh My daughter had a "mild" tt, and ...

2012-01-05T20:51:54.656Z

*sigh* My daughter had a "mild" tt, and no one would clip it. She had a weak suck and a shallow latch, but no one would clip it. She had a heart shaped tongue and still no one would clip it!! We had to do suck exercises, and manually stretch her frenulum, and it still took months before her suck was strong enough for her to start gaining well. She's 15mo now and thankfully we have overcome many of the difficulties from her tt, and she is still going strong with breastfeeding...but she STILL needs it clipped!!

Oh boy, had you only written this post six months ...

2012-01-05T20:35:47.428Z

Oh boy, had you only written this post six months ago!

My LO was checked by 2 midwives, a paed and a GP, none of whom picked up on her tongue tie. She had all of the 'symptoms' you describe - inability to cope with my letdown, awful wind and hence frequent feeds; I didn't know what was wrong as we'd been told she wasn't TTed. After 10 weeks I finally found a list of symptoms and decided it just had to be a tongue tie. Luckily my HV is amazing and got me to a consultant within 2 days who discovered that she HAD had a TT but it had somehow self released. There is still a residual tie but after another 3 weeks or so she re-learned how to feed effectively and is fine now.

It was NOT an easy time. Honestly I thought I was going a bit mad as she seemed to have all the symptoms yet who was I, a mere mum, to go against four medical professionals?

Cursory checks are all well and good but we needed examining in more depth I think. You make, as always, excellent points.