to wish babies were checked for tongue tie routinely before leaving hospital?

[MixedBerries]

Now I don't want this to descend into a slinging match about feeding choices (which usually happens whenever bf or ff are mentioned) but is it really unreasonable to expect that this is something that should be checked for by the paediatrician before leaving hospital? It would take about 1 minute.
According to NICE and UNICEF (who I assume know a thing or two) it affects 3 to 10 per cent of all babies yet at least 5 midwives, one health visitor and one paediatrician failed to check or notice it in my DS. It's not even a "hidden" posterior tongue tie. Once it was diagnosed (at 2 weeks following bleeding nipples, weight loss and failure to latch), we had to wait a further 2 weeks to see the lactation specialist as she was on holiday and is the only one in the area qualified to clip it. They we waited a further week to have it clipped. That didn't work so we had to travel half way across the country to see another specialist who clipped it again at 7 weeks. By this time DS had lost interest in boob feeding so I've been trying to get him back on and expressing in the meantime.
Now at 13 weeks, he completely refuses the breast and I don't have the time to express every 3 hours so essentially, once my freezer stash has run out, it's the end of bf. IF anyone had checked, I've been told it could have been sorted the day he was born and all this could have been avoided.
So in the light of "breast is best" being repeated over and over by the health profession, don't you think it's something fairly fundamental that could be checked for by people who are supposedly here for the best interests of our children? I'm so bloody angry. (Yes, I KNOW ff won't kill him but we really wanted to bf, particularly since asthma and allergies run in the family on both sides. And my point is that this could have been avoided so easily).

My cousin was told her dd was 'borderline' ,she couldn't bf at all so after expressing for several weeks switched to ff.Baby is thriving but hospital said bring her back when she starts to talk if it is a problem!!
I feel it is a problem Now!

Dd3 has tongue tie. It's not a bad one and hasnt affected feeding. We only know because it was in her medical notes ( as in someone HAD checked, but not done anything about).

Ds2 was tongue-tied. It was spotted at birth, but I was deliberately not told Don't ask. I kept being fobbed off and told to wait and see, but I refused and insisted it was cut.
I have read many similar stories on MN.
The basics are that you need to fight. Refuse to accept a no. Don't be fobbed off. I think this is true in any situation these days, whether your fighting to get ..... your autistic child diagnosed, your mums notes as to why she wasn't cared for proprerly at her death in hospital etc etc. Whatever it is. You have to fight.

I would ALWAYS advise someone to get it cut. As young as possible. Always. I have rarely seen anyone advise anything else.

You are sooo NBU!

DD was never checked properly (cursory glance) and because she was my first I assumed it was my fault that I couldn't feed her.

Now my Mum works with (amongst other conditions) babies who have tongue ties. She's become so much more knowledgable about these things and suddenly all of DD's 'issues' make sense, i.e.

• Complete inability to latch on for more than one 'gulp' of milk
• wrestling with her for hours to try to get her to latch sucessfully
• apparent lack of milk supply (I seemed to produce very little)
• huge preference for bottle, able to feed and be satisfied for longer with my expressesd milk
• Excruciating pain every single feed
• mastitis (more painful than childbirth)

After getting mastitis when DD was 3.5 weeks I stopped feeding her on the breast altogether. I expressed for another three weeks but found the constant expressing, feeding, bottle washing and sterilising exhausting so in the end I switched to formula, completely blamed myself and began my PND journey which included avoiding feeding DD in public because I was so ashamed of my bottles of formula.

Fortunately now I've come out the other side, no harm was done to DD and I can now recognise that formula met all my DD's nutritional needs and was nothing to be ashamed of.

I'm due DC2 in March and the first thing I'll be getting my Mum to do is have a good old poke around to see if theirs a tongue tie!

YANBU. My ds's was also missed, despite us asking before we left hospital if it was the case. Lead to a spiral of weightloss, loss of supply, medication, top ups ... All for something that could have been avoided by a proper, one minute check.

His is bad, though, and keeps regrowing. We've had it snipped 4 times.

Yanbu at all and it is terrible you had to wait so long.
Have you spoken to your lactation specialist again? Or tried the la leech league/your local surestart centre for some latching on advice? Have you tried when baby is really really hungry etc? You need to get some advice.
I know someone who used a big expressing machine from hospital which was super quick too.

Good luck.

YANBU. When my 3 year old DD was born I noticed she was tongue-tied and the midwife pointed it out to me too. We had problems feeding (fed for ages etc) and I have to say that the health visitor and midwife was very good at getting me the right help. BUT I happen to live near a hospital which is one of the few which has a proactive paediatric surgeon who runs a massive TT clinic for snipping them! Imagine a whole wating room of 30, hungry tongue tied babies waiting for the snip.... It was loud. If I had lived in a different area it would have been very different.

To give a historical perspective my husband is tongue-tied (never cut and never had problems luckily - it stretched!) and it turned out my Dad was tongue-tied as well and ended up having it cut aged about 7 years old under local anaesthetic by the GP (60 years ago). The operation my DD had was quick and simple and I am glad we had it done.

My DS had one. I know this now.

BF was a no-no; despite 8 different midwives/HV's getting involved - and none of them mentioned it. It was only at his 3 month check up (when well established on formula as he couldn't take the breast) that it was noted and mentioned.

I'm philisophical about it now (he's almost 16mo) as it allowed DH to have more of an input into his feeding and create a bond there too.

However, DS still has it, and we don't know if it will be an issue - and they are not prepared to do anything about it as it's not causing him bother at the moment and should apparently stretch.

So it's wait and see...

Aw MixedBerries .

YADamnNBU.

I'm 'only' a BFing Peer Supporter but sometimes it is just so obvious that there is a TT (I never say that though, as I can not diagnose even if it is as plain as the nose on your face, it's all 'there's enough signs to warrant a referral to the TT clinic to get it checked by a professional' etc, etc). It can be difficult persuading a HCP to write me the referral though as a lot won't unless they can see this thick piece of membrane pinning the tongue to the floor of the baby's mouth .

I really really wish it was part of the newborn check as it would be so easy to check before mum and baby are discharged, then more mothers who wanted to bf might have a shot at doing it. I do think bottlefed babies (EBM or formula) should have it clipped too, given the possibility of dental issues, snoring, sleep apnea, digestive issues and other problems.

Dr Brian Palmer DDS has a great research website on TT & the changes they can bring to the oral cavity/digestion/etc. Word of warning though - some of the presentations are aimed at medical professional not parents so some do have cadaver section slides (some are babies) and there are some slides showing frenectomys so please check very carefully before clicking on any of the presentations (there are annotated notes for each of the slides so do read the slide descriptions before opening presentations).

YANBU.
Ds(12m) has a tt. I spotted it shortly after he was born, the midwife said "oh he's just got a bit of a short tongue, no it won't affect BFing"
The paed looked and said "oh, never seen one of those before"
Luckily, he could feed - it was very painful and took a lot of effort on my part - and he put on weight.
I saw the GP when he was 4 wks old, and was told if feeding was painful, I should bottlefeed him. He only referred him when I insisted (and offered to show him my White ended, lipstick shaped nipples)
He was nearly 12 weeks old before it was clipped, and I'm still feeding him with no pain.

I don't think this should be a part of the first baby checks, as having a finger shoved in a tiny baby's mouth could be traumatic for it. I think if a mother is having initial problems with latch, it should be one of the first things to be checked.
Once a tt has been spotted, if it is causing problems, it should be dealt with very quickly, ideally within a few days. I think this is the area that needs improving. In my case it was nearly 8 weeks from it first being looked at by the GP until it was clipped, and that's just not good enough. If ds had been my first or second baby, I would have stopped.

YES PLEASE!!!
Both mine have been tt.
Bleeding nips with DS1 within 24 hrs, possiting blood (mine ), never satisfied after a feed, and excruciating (sp?) pain, and none of the midwives or NHS bf expert spotted it. 3 weeks in DH phoned the NCT bf consultant, diagnosed within 2 kins of seeing him, and sorted within a week (in a hospital an hour away). So, not only do we need tt checking for, we need NHS training on identification and symptoms (in baby and Mum), and more people who can divide them (2 per hospital, so holidays aren't an issue?)

Fast forward 2 years. DS2 arrives. Told he has all his fingers etc, and my next question " is he tt?" Que shocked midwife, but bless her, she identified it, and referred us without waiting for poor feeding. He was nothing like as bad as his brother, but was still divided.

Thank-you Alison at the NCT for allowing both my boys to be bf.

YADNBU. Same thing happened to me. Broke my heart that BF didn't work out for us long term. I cried when the HV spotted DS's tongue tie when he was 16 weeks old. He yawned as we went into the room and she saw it straight away. I had a difficult birth and was kept in hospital for a while as DS wasn't feeding properly. All those drs and midwives didn't spot it and just made me feel guilty that I wasn't doing it right.

Couldn't agree more. Despite a family history of TT and due to feeding problems me asking every midwife especially the bf specialist, they still didn't diagnose my sons TT. Stayed in hospital for 3 days to try and establish feeding and then expressed for every feed.

Finally TT was diagnosed 2 weeks after birth at a bf clinic and we did get it snipped at nearly 3 weeks but by then he wouldn't ever bf, literally screamed when I put him to the breast, so I continued to express for 8 weeks until I weaned onto formula feeding. I felt sad that bf hadn't worked out, but ff was the best for us at the time and wasn't for a lack of trying.

yanbu....your story is almost identical to mine. It is ridiculous for money to be thrown at breastfeeding support and yet they don't routinely check and immediately deal with something as common and straightforward as tongue tie...such a contradiction...

I'm sorry you're having such a hard time with it, but I just wanted to say on the other side of the coin that both me and all three of my children have tongue ties (two posterior, two anterior between us) and it's not caused breast feeding or speech difficulties for any of us. The paediatrician who saw my son after he was born told me that clipping the tongue tie was unnecessary as it didn't always make any difference. Obviously this should be your choice though and I'm sorry you've not been given the support or information at the right time. I just wanted to say that tongue ties aren't a bad thing for everyone.

I understand your point that it doesn't always cause problems, but this doesn't mean that there is nothing to be gained from identifying the presence of a tongue tie. I honestly think it should be identified in the checks shortly after birth and then the professionals and parents can decide whether to take any action or not. If it was checked at birth they could flag it up and then any subesquent problem would be easily attributed to it and advice taken.
Definitely, where there is any breastfeeding difficulty then it should be immediately checked, and breastfeeding problems are usually evident pretty early on when mother and baby are in hospital, or at least when they are still under the care of midwives.

YANBU

I'm hopping on with a positive story. Few hours after ds2 was born I happened to mention to mw that feeding didn't feel quite right, in response to her comment that I looked like a pro! From feeding ds1 for two years. About 30 seconds later I was dived on by 2 breastfeeding counsellors who diagnosed him with a tongue tie. It was a bit of a faff getting it clipped, mainly from a communication perspective of knowing where to refer us - but the support we received at birth was outstanding. As it happens we were feeding without too much pain, but it definitely improved after he was clipped.

In answer to op yanbu from my experience! Everyone should get the help and support that we received :)

YANBU

DD had tongue tie that wasn't picked up - we ended up in hospital for a week after she lost a lot of weight where it was finally noted. Even at that point we were not referred to have it clipped and we had to go down the private route. Far more costly to the NHS to fund our weeks stay than to have sorted it at birth.

The level of my ignorance never ceases to amaze me. Some of your narratives are so sad. I really thought TT would have been checked as routine.

My DS's tongue tie was spotted at 2 weeks by our HV who immediately referred us to the hospital in order for it to be snipped. She mentioned that she was only referring him as we were Bfeeding, ie she wouldn't have bothered if DS was FF which I thought was a bit off.

I think TT should be routinely checked and dealt with before being discharged (for everyone) - it's a very simple procedure after all.

Yanbu. DD1 had tounge tie and as there was a history of it in recent family babies I knew a little bit about it. So when I had problems bf I asked the midwife in hospital to check which she did but quickly said there was no problem. Next day, crying from the pain of bf I asked a different one, still said no problem. finally on the third day a new on shift midwife paid me some proper attention, asked if everything was ok and when I started crying and told her how badly the bf was going she checked baby for tounge tie, diagnosed it and got us an appointment for it to be cut a few hours later.

I diagnosed ds's tongue tie (I am a speech therapist) and insisted it was snipped as bfing was painful and he wasn't gaining weight. Paed person was very scathing it would make a difference, but I think sometimes there's a lack of awareness that tongue tie can make a difference to feeding when it wouldn't to speech. I knew his tie would make no difference to speech, but 84% of women whose babies have tongue tie experience increased pain feeding even if the tie seems relatively minor. Ds had the classic heart-shaped tongue, it hurt terribly to feed him and he wasn't gaining weight. He had the snip and within ten days he had regained his birthweight (having not budged for three weeks). I think that said it all for me...