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.

DH can hardly stick his tongue out and it goes heart shaped at the end so I do wonder if I'll have any issues with future DC. XP had a weirdy lizard tongue that DS seems to have inherited, both can touch their nose with their tongue with absolutely no trouble at all!

DM breastfed me to 13 months, tried with my younger DSis and couldn't do it - it hurt too much. Gave up at about 6 weeks and moved her on to bottles. DSis (who is 27 now) has a lisp and a tongue tie, which wasn't diagnosed in the late 80s.

I think DD2 has a tongue tie (she has a very heart shaped tongue) but it's not causing me problems with feeding her so I'm not bothered!

My almost 25yr old DS has tongue tie.

I only realised a few years ago from reading MN.

Tongue tie doesn't always cause feeding issues. If the frenulum is stretchy enough, it won't be a problem. It's the tight frenulum that causes issues, and some tongue tied babies are very hard to diagnose because they have posterior TT, so no classic heart shaped tongue. It's a complex issue, really. Very interesting about the folic acid theory.

If your DD doesn't have full range of movement then it could be likely she has a tight lingual frenulum. You can still have them divided in adulthood but obviously it's a bit more involved.

Thank you for your replies. I had no idea.

My son now three has a partial tongue tie. His was diagnosed at birth and we were offered a "snip" but declined. He was breastfed successfully and as far we know speaks perfectly clearly but I guess time will tell whether we did the right thing! You do the best you can with the information you have. I didn't realise it could be hereditary, I'm sat here with my tongue sticking out checking!

My tongue doesn't go heart-shaped, but it also barely gets out of my mouth. If you can touch your nose with your tongue, I would be very good money that you aren't TTed!

DD had a tongue tie and due to NHS faff I failed to breastfeed her beyond 8 weeks (she's 2.8 now). I asked midwives on the post natal ward if she had a TT as she had problems latching but was told she was fine. Unconvinced I went to a lactation consultant who said she was and give me a letter to give my GP to get a referral to get it snipped. Said GP took a brief look said "it's not that bad" and refused to refer, whilst giving me a lecture on "quacks" who like to scare new mothers.

We ended up going private and spending £150 to get it done but by that stage breastfeeding was doomed and I was on the verge of PND. I also developed a breast abscess which ruptured due to several bouts of mastitis.

Later, when talking to DH's mum, she told me that DH had "refused to breastfeed" as a baby so we're pretty sure DD inherited her TT from him.

What does posterior tongue tie mean? Surely tongues are supposed to be attached posteriorly, or they'd fall out!

I can get a bit passionate about TT. But briefly, my singer daughter had hers snipped as a pre teen, to help with diction. Still hasn't got full movement but it's loads better.

Is anyone else currently doing contortions with their tongue?

You shouldn't feel bad. I had never heard of it until my DC and their friends starting having babies. My youngest is 26. I just don't think it was a thing of which we were made aware.

Ds2 is a year old it took me asking several times for them to check and see that yes he was in fact tongue tied. I had to lie and say I was going to bf to get the community midwife to refer us to tt clinic. Midwife saying it wad barely anything blah blah. We went to the clinic, it was over 90% tied and he would've had problems with speech and eating had we not had it cut with scissors!

This webpage has some useful pictures of tongue ties: www.cwgenna.com/ttidentify.html

A posterior tongue tie (which is what DD had) is not "as bad" as an anterior tongue tie, but it still restricts movement.

I can/do spot and refer babies with TT, and can spot it a mile off in the parents. They're often quite surprised if I point it out in them.

If it's not causing a problem there's no reason to snip, as it involves a GA after infanthood, but it can cause dental issues as saliva can pool in the mouth and cause erosion to the tooth enamel apparently.

We won't refer in neonates for anything but feeding issues; it's unethical and not financially viable to perform a procedure for potential speech problems etc.

I should add training amongst HCPs has got A LOT better in recent years.

My 6 & 8yo weren't diagnosed.
If they were born now they'd be referred within days.

I was about 35 when a dentist told me I had a tongue tie!

Oh, and lip tie is a thing too.

That's harder to get a dx of, and quite a speciality to get treated. :(

Ouchy.

DS1 lost loads of weight as a newborn but tongue tie was never diagnosed. I was made to feel so guilty by the midwife when I began to bottle feed him.
I diagnosed him when he was 15. We were seeing if we could touch our noses with our tongue. He didn't stand a chance!
He had it snipped aged 16! The doctor said it would've been really painful if it had torn and was surprised it hadn't happened already.

We won't refer in neonates for anything but feeding issues; it's unethical and not financially viable to perform a procedure for potential speech problems etc.

That may be your view but it is not universally shared..

My DS was diagnosed with a severe TT by an observant paediatric registrar after five stricken days on the maternity unit being told by all and sundry that he was latched on and feeding well yet he lost 12% of his birth weight in 4 days and was clearly distressed and frustrated when feeding. Getting his tongue tie snipped made him into a different boy at a stroke and has also saved him a great deal of potential problems in terms of possible speech and dental problems. Unfortunately the delay in getting it diagnosed and treated meant that we were never able to establish bf. We had already had to introduce bottles to counteract the loss of weight and he was not up for re-introducing bf. Cue three months of exhaustion from expressing, and mastitis.

My older DD, on the other hand, was born prematurely and we spent 7 weeks on SCBU trying to get her to feed (bf and then ff) which led to a great deal of stress and upset. Even one we got her home (ff by that stage) she took ages to feed and would dribble most of each feed out. She was tiny anyway and it took ages for her to start gaining weight properly.

It was only when DS was diagnosed with TT that I realised that DD had had it too. The heart-shaped tongue which they both had, and which I thought was so cute in DD, was the giveaway.

It makes me quite angry that only one out of the many HCPs who dealt with DD and DS, only one was able to spot a TT.

In my opinion it is totally unethical not to treat a TT which is causing real problems to a baby both early on in terms of feeding problems and later potentially in terms of speech and dental problems. The collateral damage in terms of stress (and potential PND) to new mums struggling to feed TT babies should not be underestimated either.

With both of mine, TT was a fairly decisive factor in me having to give up bf which caused me a great deal of angst and guilt (not to mention the exhaustion of expressing to try to make sure my LOs got some bm). This was particularly hard for me to deal with as a mum with a baby in SCBU.

The procedure to snip TT, on the other hand, is very cheap and straightforward in newborns. I am at a loss to see why it is unethical in any way and it is certainly not an expensive procedure.

My 5 week old has an appointment to check for/snip suspected tongue tie in a couple of weeks.

I took her to be weighed at a drop in clinic and they asked about feeding etc. I told them that I was using nipple shields as she had trouble latching on and the lactation specialist at the hospital recommended them after DD was readmitted with jaundice and 14% weight loss. They had a look at her and suspect posterior tongue tie.

Tongue tie is talked about a lot by the health care professionals in my area as they are very keen to support bf.

It's slightly annoying as she has been seen by many paediatricians and one checked for tongue tie and said she didn't have it so we told other health care professionals that. Think we're lucky that the person at the clinic doesn't trust them to diagnose it properly!

MIL couldn't BF DH am wondering if he has it. I can't check at the moment because he's asleep. I don't think it's a thing they checked when we were babies (he's 32 now! ).

I'm tongue tied too, found out because a piercer who was potentially going to pierce my tongue (so glad i didnt get it anyway!) as a freebie for her training couldnt even get the clamp on!
I wasn't a great feeder, mum tried to breast feed but couldn't tell if i was getting enough so topped up with formula. Now i know why.
It hasn't affected me at all, i could get it surgically fixed but no pint, doesnt affect my eating or speech so best left alone.

My DD (4) is posterior tongue and upper lip tied, but by the time the health professionals saw it she was too old for the simple snip. She had huge feeding problems, she couldn't even bottle feed properly.

She's fine now, her tongue stretched when she started solids, and she's fallen a few times and gradually bust the lip tie. She still has a gap in her front teeth big enough that she likes to put the edge of a spoon in there.

I am pretty sure I am tongue tied too, though I can now touch my nose with my tongue, I couldn't as a small child. Someone said I was 'short tongued' so I used to practice stretching it...

I was severely tt as a baby and my mum struggled on bfeeding me to a year, until I was 18 months and had it cut under GA privately. DM says the impact on my developing speech was unbelievable, suddenly I could make all these sounds that I had obviously only been practising in my head!

I was a nightmare to feed, took ages and was very unsettled/sticky due to all the air I was swallowing.

It made me more aware than usual about tt, my 3rd DC I pointed out I thought she was tt at the 5 day check. It was cut privately by a paediatric surgeon when she was 9 days and the relief was instant. Because I had already fed two babies I knew how it should feel!