Mild tongue tie? Short tongue?

[orchidee]

HV suggests that DS may have a mild tt or a short tongue. BF has come with much nipple pain, blisters, blanching... feeding is fine if I use the nipple flip so HV says even if it is tt, current procedure is to leave it as he's thriving. WWYD?

What I mean is, what approach would you take? e.g.

• push for a diagnosis on the nhs, if mild tt, push for it to be snipped
• avoid nhs as it already sounds like mild tt will not be snipped, go elsewhere
• ignore it as he'd thriving
• something else

?

Is he putting on weight reasonably?

When you say feeding is fine with the nipple flip, do you mean pain-free? (What is nipple flip btw?)

He has stayed between the 75th and 91st centiles since regaining birth weight- approx 12oz weight gain per week. The HV said this would mean mild TT would be ignored. The nipple flip is a way to get a good mouthful of breast into the baby's mouth. I'm typing one-handed or would search for a link. Yes, feeding is pain-free with this technique but before learning about it I had coinstant problems from general uncomfortable feelings to cracks and blisters.

DS had a mild TT snipped at 3 months, but I was having ongoing issues with wind, ongoing damage etc (on one side). But if it wasn't causing any problems probably wouldn't have bothered. It was fairly simple and he cried less than 30 secs. Worst part was holding him down rather than the actual snip!

I can't find the web address of the original doc but a copy is here.
Someone here recommended it. It's an nhs document called "a mother's guide to breastfeeding issue 6 2006" and describes a nipple-flip technique on the page headed "attachment"

It sounds like you've got it cracked now. I don't think there'd be much benefit to getting it done at this stage.

I'll have to look up the nipple flip, I had similar issues last time with the nipple damage.

orchidee, that's fantastic info, why didn't the HV give me that when I had DS?!

He feeds frequently, usually in 5-10min sessions which could be up to 15 hours out of 24r. I expect he needs to feed often to maintain his weight gain. He makes clicking and slurping noises when feeding.

He can stick his tongue out past his gums, and it will look pointy when he does this.

I would like to avoid potential future issues e.g not being able to use his tongue to get food from behind his molars/wisdom teeth, eating an ice cream cone etc. I don't know what his issues would be of course so am guessing. It seems that an early snip is relatively easy so I'm thinking "why not?" It could be tricky to get it arranged, which is fine. Of course I don't yet have a diagnosis so it's all a bit conjecture.

sorry for typos/grammar, typing one-handed.

It's a really good document and I'm glad I dug it out again as I should remind myself of the info.

As an aside, has anyone thought of / looked into a FAQ-style sticky or post that is bumped often that contains all the standard info that new parents need? Personalised threads are great of course but stuff like links to kellymom, bf helplines, how to make up formula ec seem to come up frequently and it'd be good to say "the link's on the faq"