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.

I asked my midwife to check ds2 when he was born and she said he was fine, so I didn't check. I did bf him and it was not as easy as with ds1, I had mastitis constantly. My friend noticed his tt when he was about 6 months old!
Had to wait til he was over 12m as he had a ga. My gp also said they wait to see if there are any speech problems now rather than cut it, so I went privately

I feel really lucky that breastfeeding worked out now. It was much easier with dd2 and dd3 and I thought that was just because they weren't the first.
Touching my nose with my tongue is a totally distant dream for me! Dd3 on the other hand - we've always laughed about her huge (i.e. mobile) tongue. The folic acid theory is fascinating.

Ds2 had a bad one and hospital decided not to tell us, and he and I were unwell. they a week later phoned out of the blue and asked my dh to bring me in, so they could apologise to us!!
I couldn't get it snipped locally, went far to get it done, that didn't work and then had to go to London to see a specialist.
Ds2 still has a tongue that has a big v missing out of the front, like a lizards, but it's getting less visible as it grows.

I agree with others that they are still flippant and dismissive about it.

My DH is TT and so were/are both our children. DH was successfully BF but has struggled as an adult with jaw aches, not quite perfect enough enunciation for drama and oral hygeine and was definitely very keen that both our children had theirs divided. The struggle to BF our eldest and my mashed nipples was instrumental too of course!

The problem with tongue tie is it has become synonymous with feeding problems ie tongue tie must be causing the problems. There are loads of babies with tongue tie who breastfeed absolutely fine - examples of pp who found as adults - and by published evidence. There is also no strong scientific evidence that it improves speech (not counting the anecdotal evidence here*). So as a result, it's unethical to send every baby who has a tongue tie to get it snipped anyway "just in case" or you're subjecting a baby to a surgical procedure they may never need. That's what HCPs should be explaining.

*Own anecdotal evidence: DS BF till 2 and half and speaks perfectly at 3 with his tongue tie.

DS2 had a tongue tie but we are still feeding at 2 years and his speech is great.

My DS had a predominant tongue tie that was spotted in the hospital but wasn't snipped for 6 weeks, those first few weeks really affected us and it was bloody horrible getting up to pump while DP fed DS from a bottle every two to three hours. I've also recently found that he's got a bit of a lip tie (even after snip bfing never felt quite right but was much better than before so we carried on) but apparently that doesn't need sorting. My DP is 25 and was formula fed, his DM said 'he just never took to bfing' but it turns out he has also got a bit of a tt that we just discovered when DS was born. And DPs dad who is in his 50's also has a severe tongue tie! He said he always just thought he had a 'short tongue', it definitely seems hereditary and if I was to have anymore DC I would want to give birth in a hospital that has a tie clinic so it could be sorted before we even came home. It definitely does have an effect!

They seem to be getting better at detecting tongue-tie but it's still very hit and miss.

DS1 never latched properly, despite vast amounts of support. Everyone was adamant he wasn't tongue-tied.

DS2 was tricky to feed, but did manage it. He was checked for tongue-tie and I was told he wasn't. When he stopped feeding altogether at around 4 months he was checked again and they found what looked like a very minor tongue-tie, but when it was snipped it turned out to be more substantial than it looked. He went straight back to feeding normally.

With DC3 I raised it before he was born, and he was checked straight away and a tongue-tie was found and clipped within a few days. He fed easily and well.

Various HVs and MWs have said that they strongly suspect DS1 would have had a slight tie that wasn't picked up on, as in their experience, if two children in a family are tongue-tied, the other one probably would be as well.

Neither DP or I are tongue-tied, incidentally.

My son has one, he's nearly 15 and is also fine, you'd never know.

blueberry in my trust we don't snip if feeding is going well. I'm not sure you understand what I'm saying. :)

Of course we'd snip if it was causing problems, either weight loss or pain for the mum.
What we wouldn't do is clog up the already oversubscribed clinic with babies who are doing well but may go on to develop a lisp. Any procedure carried out for no good reason on a baby is, of course, not appropriate.

A frenulotomy in itself isn't expensive, no. It takes a minute, a pair of sterile scissors and a vial of sugar water. What is expensive is the training and time of the practitioner, the room, the hour long consultation etc etc.

One of my babies fed fine with a TT. One was so painful, and took so long to establish feeding I couldn't bond with him and developed PND. It was the one of the most miserable times of my life, and the effects are still with us. Those are the babies who need referring. And those with >10% weight loss.

UterusUterusGhali

No, I'm not suggesting that every baby with a slight tongue tie should have it snipped. But I do think that HCPs should be trained to identify TT and that there should be an NHS facility to deal with TT if it is causing problems.

My DS had a 100% TT which led to him losing 12% plus of his birth weight in three days despite me being told repeatedly that there was no problem. This led to a distressed baby and mum, not to mention a cost to the NHS in terms of the extra days we had to spend in hospital before the problem was identified.

Having had DS diagnosed and treated for TT, I am not pretty sure that DD (born before DS) had a severe tongue tie too at birth. She spent 7 weeks in SCBU (was a 32-weeker) and those 7 weeks were feeding hell as she wouldn't latch, every feed (bf and ff) took forever and she was slow to put on weight. Having someone in SCBU able to diagnose and sort TT might well have allowed us to get bf established and for her to have put on weight quicker. This would have been of great benefit to her and me, and potentially would also have saved NHS money by allowing her to be discharged earlier from SCBU.

What I am saying is that babies with TT like yours and mine (ie losing >10% birthweight and/or not getting feeding established) should be getting diagnosed and treated on the NHS. This might be happening in your unit but it is definitely not happening everywhere.

Equally though it sounds like my dd would not have been a good way to spend NHS funds given that we did establish and sustain feeding and she did always gain though not always by very much.

Don't know if it's an old midwives tale, but someone told me in years gone by many older midwives would deliberately keep a long fingernail on one hand and use it to nick a TT in a newborn shortly after delivery,
, thus negating the need for intervention further down the line.

My little ones got tt, he's bottle fed so they said there was no point in doing anything as he feeds fine. Poor lad can't stick his tonge out.

I quite agree there, blueberry.

We're lucky that there were a couple of very passionate people (a paed and a MW) in our trust who took the initiative and set up clinics, trained staff etc. that's only been in the last few years. My DS is 6 and it certainly wasn't in place then.

We diagnose and treat a lot of babies now, but the clinic is still bursting and there are only a few people trained in frenulotomy.

With DC2 my midwife told me she had a slight tongue tie that probably wouldn't affect feeding. After she was regularly cluster feeding for nine hours in a row, slipping off all the time, thrush and mastitis, and ruined nipples some online friends suggested it was tongue tie. I couldn't see anything but saw a specialist who told me it was posterior and very thick, and it was one of the hardest ones she'd ever had to do. They were amazed she could even feed. Her latch improved immediately.

I only breastfed DC1 for a few weeks because of similar difficulties but I didn't really know about tongue tie then, so wonder if that's what caused our problems.

My 15 yr old can hardly stick her tongue out but it only occurred to me recently that it might be a tongue tie . I didn't think of it before because I assumed it always caused feeding problems and she BF beautifully as a baby. No speech issues either. Can't imagine her wanting to do anything about it now!

I had all my children in the 1980s and had literally never heard of it until DC's friends starting having babies. It seems it wasn't picked up.

I had a tongue tie (it snapped itself), my siblings do too (their's didnt). Didn't realise how common it was until ds was born and every midwife and health visitor noticed it immediately. He had it snipped which allowed me to breastfeed, before that he just couldn't latch and was so upset. He also had a bit of an issue with some of the bottles, making him dribble a lot and try and guzzle.

If I have a dc2 I'll be casing them to check right away and get it rectified if needed as with ds it severely impacted breastfeeding and my trying to do it led to a dehydrated unhappy baby and a frustrated feeling like a failure mum.