Breastfeeding lip tied baby

[user1468244773]

Please help I'm in agony.

Baby girl is 5 days old. She was diagnosed with a tongue tie by the peditrition at 3 days old. She's put us through for an emergency appointment but we have to wait for a letter.

My nipples are shredded. I feel like I have a low supply especially at night. Last night she fed at 11, then up at 12.30 until 5 just feeding and crying because my boobs were so deflated she couldn't latch on. All while I was crying in pain. I'm also recovering from a c section. She won't settle at all unless she's on the boob. She has a strong sucking urge and as soon as she falls asleep and unlatches she wants to go again. I don't even get a let down sometimes just feel her sucking as if she would on a dummy.

I topped her up last night with an oz of formula but made no difference so I'm not doing that again as I felt awful!

Dp has bought me a Madela (?) pump which is coming today to try and express so I can top up at night when my boobs are hurting majorly.

My boobs are so painful, the ache when they are empty is that normal? I'm so exhausted.

[Orsono]

I've been where you are and it's awful, well done for getting this far. Nights are particularly bad when you're in pain. A couple of things - your boobs feeling empty doesn't mean you have low supply - it's normal for them to feel empty when she's feeding loads (and it's normal for her to feed loads). In fact the 'emptier' they are the quicker they're making milk.

In terms of the pain, my boobs also ached between feeds. I found wearing nothing on top round the house helped, along with paracetamol and nipple cream. Expressing a bottle at night is also a good idea, I used to do this too.

If the referral is taking a long time, are you in a position to get it done privately? In my area there are a couple of qualified lactation consultants who will come to your home and cut it for around £150.

[Orsono]

Also, forgot to say, it's worth going to a breastfeeding support group if you have one in your area. Although the tongue tie is likely the cause of your problems, they may well be able to help you with the latch and suggest different positions that will help make it less painful while you wait.

[FurryGiraffe]

First- congratulations on your new DD!

It sounds like you're having a tough time. Have they given any indication of how long it will be for the appointment? If not can you (or perhaps your DH who might be feeling a bit more up to it!) really push at the midwife when you see her- if it's day five you should see her today I think. If it's not going to be very quick is going private an option? DS2 had his tongue tie snipped privately a few weeks ago for £150 to give you an idea of cost (I'm in East Anglia).

In the short term, make sure you're being super careful with her latch. I know she can't latch 'well' but she will still manage it better sometimes than others. Try and take care to get as good a latch as you can- I found being really careful managed the pain/damage a bit. Also, if she faffs about refusing to latch you're probably tempted to leave her even when you know the latch isn't as good as it can be. I'd suggest not leaving her with a bad latch as you're probably increasing the damage to your nipples. I know this is so much easier said than done though! When they've latched on you just want to leave them there and not go through the agony of taking them off and re-latching.

Make sure your nipples get lots of air to help them heal- leave your top/bra off as much as you can. Rubbing a little breast milk into your nipples can help them heal. Lansinoh is great too. It might be worth considering nipple shields but it's probably best to discuss that with someone who knows a lot more than me! The breastfeeding helplines are great if you want to speak to someone knowledgable about BF: in my experience MWs can be very hit and miss.

Good luck- hope it all improves soon. FWIW, both my DSs had TT and we had huge improvement after they were cut, especially with DS1.

[RNBrie]

I agree with everything Orsono has said here.

All three of mine were tongue tied and the pain was awful.

I'd also really recommend finding someone to snip her tongue tie privately if you can afford it. Around here the wait for an NHS clinic is three weeks which would have finished me off.

I also found heat quite relieving for the pain. Soak your boobs in a hot bath with some lavender oil before you go to bed. And if you have one of those heat packs that goes in the microwave, use that before each feed.

But until that tongue is sorted, your unlikely to get much relief. In my experience, my nipples were almost back to normal within 48 hours of the tie being snipped and completely pain-free within a week. So there is hope

[HumphreyCobblers]

My last ds was tt - anterior, posterior and with a grade IV lip tie. I had the anterior lip tie done privately on day three but didn't know about the other two until I noticed the lip tie much later. A poster called Mawbroon was incredibly helpful to me in researching what to do and we ended getting them lazered off my Dr Levinkind when he was five months old.

Having the anterior snipped did relieve the worst of the pain though. I really think that I could not have continued. If you can possibly afford it I would go private rather than wait.

[HumphreyCobblers]

Oh, and if your nipples are actually cracking, try jelonet for moist wound healing - if you air dry cracked nipples then each time you latch on the wound will crack again from underneath and get bigger.

[jessplussomeonenew]

I'd second getting the referral accelerated or going private if you can (cheaper than having to switch to formula in the long run!). I found nipple shields were a godsend in the short term - they are fiddly and can change sucking habits but got me through until the tie was snipped. Flipple latch technique (if you search you'll find videos) helped a bit to get as good a latch as possible.

[user1468244773]

Thank you everyone.

Iv got the pump and had ago. I managed to get a dribble out of each breast. She was last fed and hour and half ago so I assumed i would have something to express?!

[Thomasisintraining]

I have been where you are too. In the end I used Avent nipple shields and they helped enormously. It took many months for my nipples to heal properly but in honesty the BF improved quicker than the nipples and it turned out to be a really good thing.

[SpeakNoWords]

Not everyone can express, or express as much as a baby can get from you. And sometimes you can express loads and then the next time barely anything, so it can really vary.

With expressing, to get a good let down reflex going it helps to really relax (not easy I know), and it can help to look at your baby or even a picture of them. Also check that the size of the breast attachment is right for you, you can get different sizes to make sure your nipple is correctly positioned. I found I also had to turn up the suction a reasonable amount from the default on my Medela Swing.

[Thomasisintraining]

Maybe look at hand expressing some women I know found they could express easily using it when they could barely get a drop from the pump.