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).

YADNBU - no-one checked my DS, I didn't think to (he was 8 weeks prem so I had enough on my mind!), and by the time anyone noticed at 7 weeks it was too late, bf had failed (not the only reason but a significant factor) and I never managed to get my supply going properly again. He had his TT snipped at 9wo. I'm still pleased it was picked up eventually and in time to deal with it with minimum trauma, as apparently it was significant enough to affect his speech.

YADNBU the MW at the Guildford hospital spotted it at birth with my DS. However I had to go to my GP have it diagnosed and be referred back to the hospital to have it snipped when he was 2 weeks old. He had awful colic and I was hoping the snip would help him feed better and take in less wind.

I cannot imagine what you went through though OP. That's awful.

Yanbu

Doesn't mean they would notice it though (although with more practice they would hopefully). My independent midwife noticed dd2's straight away, and none of the pads or hospital midwives had noticed it at all!

I actually asked the midwife to check for it, she told me it was fine.
I didn't really notice til he was a few months old that ds2 was quite badly tt. He could feed ok (not as well as ds1had) but had trouble with a bottle if I wanted to express.
I had to wait til he was a year old to get it done under a general.

When I say he fed ok, actually when I think about it, I had bleeding nipples and mastitis several times but never attributed to the way he was feeding

My mum says when she had her babies (in the 1960s) it was the done thing to just take the baby to your GP,who would take a look,and if he or she agreed they woud snip it there and then with a tiny sharp pair of scissors! She remembered the doc saying "I hate this job,the little tongues are so hard to get hold of!"

This makes me furious. I started a thread about this a few months ago. DC4 (so old timer bfer and looking forward to my LAST bf experience) had me in agony within 2 days of the birth with bleeding nipples (he had blood in his mouth as well) and knife like pains in the boobs at every feed. I had his latch checked by 4 different midwives and 1 hv but none of them mentioned tongue tie. I also spoke to 2 La Leche league counsellors.

I spent hours making sure he was in the right position (which he was) and still ended up with white lipstick shaped nipples (never heard them described like that until reading this thread but was exactly that!). He fought me at the breast as well (little blighter) and I was going through Lansinoh [sic] like there was no tomorrow. On day 5 I ended up making a 1am dash to Asda in hysterical tears to buy bottles and formula as I thought I was starving him and the pain was unbelievable . I continued to express and kept trying to bf until he was 8 weeks old. We have had continual problems with him gagging and choking on food, even regurgitating whole meals, he is now 18 mos old. The dribbling is unbelievable as well. Think puddles on the floor! His speech is also non-existant as well, apart from 'dad' which he calls everyone and everything .

When he was 15 mos old, a hv told me that he had a tongue tie so I should take him to my GP to a referral for it to be snipped. Hallejuah I thought, so bf was not my fault and the gagging and dribbling will be sorted......GP said no tt. Saw another GP and told there was a definite tt so referred to hospital to have it snipped. Hospital consultant last week said NO tt! WFAF! Any ideas?

You can go private Michael Sheenan at Manchester does private (IIRC) but you could try contacting MilkMatters.org as they do a lot of referrals/organising of TT divisions and should be able to advise you where would be your nearest divider.

the hospital Dsis was at allegedly does routinely check, however Dsis notes said they hadn't...

Dsis...three weeks of crap trying to feed a tongue tied baby. it took 40 mins just to get a bottle of EBM down her!

after the snip, got back to near-normal feeding.

Paid £80 (was surprised how little) for a doc to come to her house to snip - two days after it was spotted by an NCT counsellor. Fast referral.

I have had three children and not one has been checked at birth.

Yanbu. I spotted tongue tie on ds (I am a speech therapist but not a specialist in paeds, far from it). I had to fight to get him seen quickly by being bolshy, contacting paeds colleagues and ringing a surgeon myself. What if i hadn't had that knowledge?
As it turned out he was one of those for whom surgery wasn't a help with feeding. he was six weeks when snipped and by ten weeks had dropped from 75th to bottom centile.
Don't regret the surgery though as think his speech and confidence in later life will benefit.
I have a great pic of his tongue tie. Going to try and put on my profile but using ipad so bear with me...

The operation isn't quite as simple to correct it when they're older, they often need a general anaesthetic. I opted to have to snipped asap just in case.

Rather do it, than wait and hope they grow out of it, to then have to have a more involved operation instead iyswim? In the event it didn't help my DS's colic but he did feed better from me.

Not convinced they'd grow out of it. But I'm basing that on my limited experience with my niece and nephew.

pic of tongue tied ds if anyone interested

God grief my post doesn't make much sense. I'm tired and typing too fast

Oh Hairtwiddler he is gorgeous!

I didn't say there wasn't anything to be gained by early diagnosis - certainly all three of mine were noted at their paedo check first thing and the sooner you know the better for decision making and feeding help. I'm surprised that it wasn't noted, perhaps it's worth mentioning to the hospital. It can't change your situation now but it might help someone else avoid it in future.

Incidentally, another poster mentioned white, lip-stick shaped nipples, which are very familiar - was that always caused by the tongue tie? You live and learn, don't you?

Thanks. He's two now and very capable of sticking out his tongue to lick an ice cream!

Ds's TT was snipped, but is still there, but we noticed at about 6 months he could suddenly stick his Tongue out more, so I think they can stretch, not sure if they can be grown out of though.

I was actually going to start a thread yesterday to thank the breastfeeding section, because had I not lurked on it loads whilst pg, I would never have heard of Tongue tie at all, let alone know that it can be snipped, so if anyone from there reads this, Thankyou :)

My boy had his tongue right out earlier and I was thinking about it and how great it was, that he now could. Long before I saw this thread. But your boy is lush

Hairtwiddler - he's lovely :) DS's Tongue looks like that.
My nipples still go lipstick shaped, but no longer White, and feeding doesn't hurt at all.
From what I've read, the lipstick shape is common with tt'd babies, but I'm not sure why.

He's beautiful!

Gosh, sounds like I was lucky in comparison to a lot of you on here!

DS had total tongue tie and was unable to suck at all. 36 hours of failed attempts and hand expressing later I asked the paediatrician doing his check if there was a physical reason why he couldn't feed. She spotted the tt and an hour later it had been snipped. Took him ages to feed properly as he seemed to remember that it was hopeless to try and suck. I don't know why it couldn't have been checked earlier with the problems I was having but at least it was sorted quickly once it was diagnosed.

When I have this baby I'll be getting it checked straight away if there are any feeding problems. It takes barely any time so should be routine.

It's often because the latch isn't deep enough so the tongue is compressing the nipple against the hard palate instead of the junction of the hard & soft palates.

Using latching techniques likedeep latch (aka exaggerated latch or 'The Flipple') can help get more breast in the baby's mouth and get round this.

If your nipples are still going lipstick shaped, is there any chance that there are adhesions under the tongue from the clipping or perhaps more frenulum tissue has spread out (appparently some times the visible tissue is removed but there is lots more bunched up behind and relaxes into the space left by the removed frenulum).

YANBU - I noticed it on DS at 1 day old and, after a bit of fuss, they did it there and then - took seconds and DS didn't even notice but they'd tried to fob me off until he would have been weeks old and I am sure it would have been much more of a trauma for all concerned. Seconds to check, seconds to snip - why WOULDN'T they...?