Suspect my baby had tongue tie but I'm not going to be able to do anything about it

[Northernlurker]

As she is now 18 1/2

Pfb was successfully breastfed till 11 months nearly twenty years ago. I didn't have Mumsnet and I had never heard of tongue tie.
Pfb is now studying medicine and was doing clinical skills with a GP. She struggled to move her tongue as asked and the GP said she thought she might have a slight tongue tie.
I rubbished this saying 'no, no you were successfully breastfed, you can't have tongue tie. Although it did used to take you an hour to feed......oh s**t'

So on the one hand I'm impressed 21 yr old me managed to keep going with breast feeding and oth I feel rather embarasssed. Can't exactly get it snipped now.

[Northernlurker]

This is lighthearted btw, nobody accuse me of baby cruelty etc!

[NeedsAsockamnesty]

I have a almost full TT as does my second eldest (23yo) and every child since only 3 have had theirs snipped I recall many years ago it was considered not needed

[switswoo81]

Fair play you! When I went to get my babies tongue tie snipped the doc looked at me and said oh she obviously gets it from you, you are very tongue tied..... news to me

[lilyb84]

Both me and DH have tt, his is quite severe. Neither of our mums successfully bf beyond a few weeks and I actually lost loads of weight - technically I was failing to thrive at one point. And my mum was a children's nurse!! She still feels bad but only in a sort of vague way - it just wasn't picked up back then thanks to everything being so medicalised. Just in the same way that we were weaned at 4 months. Don't feel bad as it sounds like you did an amazing job with bf and your daughter has had no problems otherwise. No harm no foul!

[Northernlurker]

Yes I suspect I have it too can't do much with my tongue!

[Iambubbles86]

Same here but I'm the child in the equation. My tongue is tied about a cm from the tip and I have a significant lisp requiring 3 years of speech therapy so people could understand me. Having it cut never came up as an option

[AChickenCalledKorma]

It came as a great relief to my MIL when we explained about tongue tie after having DD1s snipped. She had a huge struggle to feed DH and had felt guilty for about 30 years . His tongue barely reaches past his bottom teeth.

[NicknameUsed]

How do you know if you have it?

[Twinkletowedelephant]

My twins had tongue tie so bad they couldn't latch on - was told they don't snip them anymore

[Northernlurker]

Suddenly the time when she was about three weeks old and not gaining weight (which we put down to me being on antibiotics) has a new significance as does the degree of soreness I had AND possibly her being quite slow to talk (though she's caught up now!)

[bookworm14]

I don't think tongue tie was picked up nearly so often in the past. Well done for persisting with breastfeeding - that must have been tough!

When we had my DD's tongue tie snipped, the doctor diagnosed my DH with it too! DH had always joked about having a weirdly short tongue, so we asked the doctor to have a look and she said he did have tongue tie. It wasn't picked up when he was a baby, but he was formula-fed so it wasn't so much of an issue anyway. Clearly not worth doing anything about it as an adult, but it makes you wonder how many people are walking around completely unaware they're tongue-tied!

[WheresTheEvidence]

I self diagnosed myself with tongue tie at 21.

The failure to thrive, screaming, grumpy baby who couldn't latch on makes complete sense now.

My poor mother.

[OlennasWimple]

NicknameUsed - can you stick your tongue out of your mouth?

I have a tt - apart from not being able to eat an ice cream very well (I manage ) or do proper Spanish rolled Rs (I took French instead), I've not noticed any big impact on my life

[BoffinMum]

Me too, I am 49 and my doula diagnosed my tongue tie 7 years ago. Mum fed me herself for a month and then put me onto bottles and didn't look back. I am absolutely fine.

[SerialReJoiner]

It does run in families; dh and I have it and our dc, too. I didn't struggle to feed the dc apart from the youngest, though. For whatever reason her tongue mobility was much less than her siblings.

Tongue tie is still not caught early enough nor seen as a serious issue by many hcpS. It winds me up quite a bit.

[RandomMess]

Hope I don't come across as a "know all".

Checking for tongue tie and cutting them was a regular thing done at birth/early days forever UNTIL common place bottle feeding became the "new enlightened way" in the 60s & 70s onwards - because bottle fed babies can cope with TT because they don't need to use their tongues in the same way.

The revival of TT being snipped as occurred as it's now yet again recognised something that can massively affect breast feeding.

[Northernlurker]

It's so interesting. I was breast fed and knowing that was what kept me going with dd1. I knew if mum could do it, so could I. My mum didn't seem to find anything strange in my breastfeeding experiences. Of course she didn't. Dd1 and I have the same tongue!

[Northernlurker]

Oh and I was a 70s baby and my mum was thought quite unusual to breast feed my sister and I.

[FortyFacedFuckers]

My 40 year old DP is tongue tied and when DS was born they said they didn't unsnip them unless we asked so we left DS who is now 11.

My colleague recently discovered her DS is toungue tied at age 10 and took him to get it snipped.

[NicknameUsed]

"NicknameUsed - can you stick your tongue out of your mouth?"

Yes. I can touch my nose with it. Can people with tongue tie not stick their tongue out then?

[Iknowwhatyoumeanaboutthathat]

My mum
Couldn't BF me and it was only after I had dc that I realised I had a TT. I also had to give up feeding my now high school aged son. He has an obvious TT but at the time i wasn't on mumsnet and had no idea. Explains a lot and it's a shame I wasn't more clued up at the time.

[MrsBobDylan]

When ds3 was born paed said he had a tongue tie and that I could talk for my mw if I wanted to peruse getting it snipped. It was a right faff on, since no one local would do it, so I was referred to a hospital an hour's drive away, had to get a fit note from GP early after c-section so I could drive there and I had to take ds2 who was not in his best ASD coping phase and hates hospitals.

Was so glad I persisted though, despite the lack of encouragement or help from the medics. Ds couldn't push his tongue past his bottom teeth and although he was my 3rd bf baby, it was considerably more sore to feed him.

I think they are way too blasé about it. One of my nephew's didn't get his done and now at 3 his diction is really poor and he struggles with lumps in his food. I'll always wonder if the tongue tie is the cause.

[BertieBotts]

I don't know if I was tongue tied, but I managed to rip my tongue frenulum by kissing a boy when I was about 18!

I have read that the idea that it was really well known and often treated in the olden days is a bit rose tinted, and not necessarily the case. But I've also read some speculation that tongue tie is more common today because all pregnant women are advised to take folic acid which promotes growth on the midline - and tongue tie is an example of a midline defect caused by too much growth. Tongue tie is, of course, much less serious than spina bifida, so the benefits of folic acid still outweigh the risks even if it is true, but I thought it was interesting.

[mudandmayhem01]

Both my children have mild tongue tie, slightly heart shaped look to the end of their tongues when they stick them out, can both stick their tongues beyond their lips but only just. Both breast feed with no issues so I never got them snipped. Might effect their ability with certain instruments, but they have picked piano and guitar anyway. My oldest is 13 btw

[WheresTheEvidence]

Nickname I can't get my tongue over my bottom lip even if I try.