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).

If a TT were left, and did affect speech, what sounds and letters would be affected and in what way? I also had similar breast feeing issues as described here, but despite mentioning a possible tounge tie to various professionals none has ever even checked, and have been told to wait to see if DS speech is affected.

What would the speech symptoms be at two yer old?

I haven't read all the other replies but I'm with you and wish they checked routinely. All my 3 dc have had tongue tie. With dc2 I had similiar problems in that he virtually chewed my nipples off and although we got it cut relatively quickly by time I had healed he was used to bottles and I couldn't get him back on the breast. With dc3 luckily there was a midwife on the postnatal ward who could cut them as I virtually refused to leave hospital until it was done as I didn't want the same problems.

It would save a lot of heartache if it was checked routinely as often it's not picked up until there are feeding problems by which time it's often too late.

My second baby was tongue tied, not diagnosed on leaving hospital but after a couple of days painful feeding I new all was not as it should be. I went to one of the nhs breastfeeding support sessions and it was diagnosed in minutes. She knew I would have to wait a couple of weeks for it to be snipped so she gave me a couple of new positions to feed more comfortably in. The snip itself is far more distressing for mum than it is to you, but truthfully it was just no big deal, over in seconds and not a squeak or a drop of blood and it's all sorted and feeding back to normal. It's all about getting the good help that's out there, but frankly you have to go out and chase it down.

I didn't know it wasn't - but then there have been a few cases of tongue-tie in DH's family and I told people both before and after dd's birth that I wanted them to check her for it just in case. Will make sure to do the same again (if this round of TTC works!).

YANBU. Neither of mine were checked for it even though we had a terrible time trying to get DD to feed. She never did latch on, had expressed milk for 6 weeks then finally switched to formula. The only reason I even knew about tongue tie was because of MN and I found out too late to ask anyone to have a look for it. It seems like it could be checked so easily.

kitcatcandy my DD is 9 & has an uncut TT. When she was little anything with an "i" or "ee" sound came out as "a" (so pink was pank, sorry was sorrah). She doesn't do that anymore, but she is still sometimes hard to understand. Everything is poorly articulated, as if she has something in her mouth. I don't know how typical that is though?

She's also a messy eater & is prone to getting food round her mouth.

After reading the thread I Googled "effects of tongue tie" & she ticks so many of the boxes. She has dental problems, despite my best efforts to look after her teeth (& my other DCs have no problems with their teeth) & she goes through phases of gagging on her food, which then turns into weird food behaviour (as an example, she once chewed one piece of felafel for the entire length of the M20!).

I'm going to make an appointment to speak to my GP about it. I don't know whether it needs to be cut or not, but I can at least have it looked at again. I feel now that she's probably been having problems with it all her life & I just didn't recognise what the cause was.

It's Patrick Sheehan at Manchester. We had to go to him privately after the first few times as ds's tie kept growing back thicker and thicker, and our lovely infant feeding coordinator was just not happy to keep doing it as it was so severe.

Janet beech at countess in Chester is wonderful.

isitwine, although my dd1 has had her tongue-tie cut (aged about 2 1/2), she still can't really stick it out much, I have also noticed she eats dramatically slowly, and wonder if she developed this as a way of making sure she didn't choke (as she choked so much when weaning). It does sound like it might be worth speaking with a consultant, in my experience though they are very led by you, happy to leave it, happy to do it if you want it, so I would read more, and get advice from a specialist consultant who deals with this a lot, so you can make an informed decision. It does sound like your daughter might benefit from having it looked at, at the very least.

I asked for DD2 to be checked in hospital - by MW & paed & they did it - but it certainly wasn't routine.

DD1 was mildly TT and this caused me LOTS of pain (though she fed OK) for about 2 months - at which point she developed beyond the TT limitations I guess. The TT was diagnosed about the same time it stopped being such an issue for us. Before then I had had countless MW & DR's looking at her and me when I complained of the pain. They all said she's latching on fine etc - didn't look at her tongue & I had no idea about TT. So I was anxious for them to check DD2 asap, not wanting to go through that pain unnecessarily again but wanting to BF.

YANBU - it's a good idea.

Totally agree. DS's was picked up at 6 weeks. HV sent me to a BFing group where there was a lactation consultant. She had a feel in his mouth said he had quite a severe posterior TT and put a referral in. It was snipped at 10 weeks, we had to go to a different hospital as no-one at our hospital is trained to do it, it's not even a small hospital. He's much better at latching on but still not great, he doesn't open his mouth wide enough and his tongue movements are unco-ordinated so he coughs a lot still. I put it down to 10 weeks of latching in the best way he could and it's hard to un-learn.

I'm lucky that I have a very strong let-down so he's always been able to get enough milk without making my nipples too sore.

I honestly think if babies were checked for TT at birth, and it was treated early on (within 2 weeks at latest) then the BFing rates would be much much higher.

I also think if babies were checked then the 3-10% would be much higher... the fact that it's 3-10% anyway shows there's something massively flawed in the statistics. 10% where professionals are better at spotting them, and 3% where they're not.

Totally agree. I nearly gave up bf as it was so painful until ds was diagnosed with tt at about 3 weeks. Was snipped within days, luckily.

There can definitely be a hereditary link, one of the first questions we were asked was whether anyone in the family had one (they haven't) the lady who snipped DS's admitted there was still a lot of research being done about them and they were pushing for more people to be trained in recognising them.

The Lactation Consultant I met said she also has problems with Speech Therapists saying TT doesn't affect feeding, but that's because almost all the children the Speech Therapists see who have a tongue tie have been bottle fed. .. because the TT wasn't picked up and the mothers gave up BFing.

DS's TT would definitely have affected his speech as although he could touch the top of his mouth with the tip of his tongue he couldn't raise the middle part of his tongue or stick his tongue out.

I'm a SALT assistant myself, we do a lot of work with people with eating & drinking difficulties and I dread to think about the probelms DS would have had when we start weaning if the TT hadn't been picked up.

I am just in the process of going to the health visitor tomorrow with DS (2.5) as the nursery have raised issues with his speech. I asked for him to be checked when born as there is a strong family history with this (DH, DBil, DSS all have it and have had snips).

He did BF ok but I did have quite a bit of pain at times and the lipstick shaped nipples but I got through ok and he put on weight fine. He doesn't seem to have too much problem with food but does seem to have a habit of 'storing' it in his mouth. His tongue does seem to be a little on the short side too.

I've raised it continually with MW especially now he's talking and there's definitely a difference between his speech and that of some of his little friends. It takes me back to when DSS was little and we found out that he had it and I feel fairly sure even though it was a long time ago the same signs are there.

I am concerned now he'll have to have GA but even more concerned that the longer it's left he may find it difficult to unlearn speech habits he's picked up (DSS had to have speech therapy).

It isn't unreasonable to expect an automatic check at birth, given that it's quite a common problem and simply treated but I think more HCP need to listen to women, especially when there is a strong family history.

Right, so it's unanimous then.

Who can we email this thread to who might be able to look at instigating this?

We don't routinely check for it where I work. I diagnosed a fairly obvious one once on the pn ward, was causing feeding problems. We don't have anyone at our hospital who will snip them, paed refused to refer as he said that Tongue ties don't cause problems. All other paeds I spoke to backed him up. As a lowly midwife I'm not allowed to refer. I told the woman the only thing she could do was to see the GP when she got home and ask for a referral, but she wasn't allowed home due to baby,s weight loss! Aggghhh! She bottle fed instead.

So mnhq, would you be up for this?

It seems to be mostly a case of the people who could snip, not snipping because they don't think it's an issue. So any campaign needs to address that - to take it to the consultants and paeds and show them that yes it IS an issue if mothers who want to bf, can't because of this. I suspect a lot of the time, they just assume that since a baby can always be bottlefed, where's the big problem?

I don't know, Reshape, I think it's a fundamental ignorance of the condition. MWs are trained to look for the right latch but beyond that they don't seem informed. In my case I was just told everything looked fine and that was that.

Mnhq have passed on to their campaigns team to consider...

I agree that it's a general problem with many MWs not spotting it (I was told latch was fine but they didn't investigate further) as well as staff trained to actually do the snipping.

I'm glad this has been passed on to MNHQ campaigns people as surely it would be fairly easy to make a difference to the experiences of so many. It could have prevented a month of appointments and referrals for me but surely also it could reduce speech therapy appointments?

the dude who snipped Dnieces tongue said 70-80% of women who he snipped for found an immediate improvement in feeding. It can help even in bottle feeding (less time to feed, less gassy, less noise and dribble)

i am going to find out what my PCTs policy is ..

my ds2 who was really tt, 90% they said, had a very noticeable forked tongue when he was born - did others have that? I remember it was the first thing I noticed when he was handed to me, squawking - I remember saying "Oh look he's got a lizard tongue" - surely that is quite easily spotted?

ds3 was also tt but his tongue was not as forked. I did notice in the first few weeks that neither of them seemed able to stick their tongues out, or at least didnt at all, wheras afterwards they both could and did.

The procedure was quick, straightforward and not at all traumatic in both cases.

no, i don't think Western Sussex does, it mention s'checking the baby top to toe' but not specifically tongue tie...which i think it would mention, especially as maybe 1 in ten would be eligible for snipping, and ideally that would have been discussed pre-birth...

I really struggled with DD with BF, "white lipstick nipples" all the time, very painful, endless blocked ducts and mastitus battled on till 5.5 months. With DS I was more proactive at getting help. He was checked for TT on 5 day check (by which time I had mastitus) and was told all clear. With both my children they were thriving on bf becuase my boobs massively overproduce so they really only needed to swallow to get by. (!) I went to a bf clinic at the hospital and they picked up the postere (sp) TT. Saw a private nurse/lactation consultant and had it snipped for £70 within a couple of weeks. The nurse/lactation consultant was great as she did a follow up visit to see how it was going and also runs a free bf drop in clinic. If the TT reheals she resnips for free. She told me that years ago a pair of TT snipping scissors was part of a MW kit. Luckily she lives locally. If she wasn't available we'd have been refered to southampton (from High wycombe). My DS was about 6 weeks when he was "done" and it was a swift and simple procedure. Could easily be done to all tongue ties as routine.

DS is now 18 months and is still bfing, so it was £70 well spent! There's a strong likilihood my DD had a slight tongue tie too, shame I didn't feel brave enough or realise I needed to seek more advice. I just think that it's another example of inadequate support for bf. We all get the "breast is best" message loud and clear but rarely are women told how much hard work it can be to get right and even if you think or are told you are doing it right it's worth going to the free clinics for support and tips. I went to a bf clinic every week for the first 8 weeks withDS and only felt we were really getting into the swing of it when he was about 4 months, despite being told I had great technique from the off.