Tongue Tie and Breast Feeding

[koalabear]

The good news is that Kate was born last Thursday at a hefty 9 lbs 6 ounces.

The bad news is that she is not feeding very well and is losing weight. She wants to feed, but keeps loosing the latch and then gets more and more upset.

Breast feeding advisor said that she is about 50% tongue tied and therefore this "might" be causing her to lose the latch.

Tonight I expressed 2 ounces directly after feeding her for 30 minutes, and she guzzled down the two ounces from a bottle like there was no tomorrow.

Has anyone successful breastfed a tongue tied baby?

For now, I am going to keep expressing and giving it to her in a bottle diretly after attempting to give her the breast simply because she is losing so much weight. Am going to see a BF counsellor who knows about tongue tied.

Am looking for advice / suggestions / experiences.

Many thanks
KB

There are doctors who specialise in sorting this out. From what I know (from our local BFC), the severity of the tongue tie isn't necessarily related to the problems it causes. DS2 is (was) pretty severely tongue-tied, so much so that the HV, GP, and BFC all commented on it. But he fed fine, so we didn't worry.

I would:
a) go see your BFC asap.
b) consider cup feeding, rather than bottle, as that is much likely to cause nipple confusion ...

Also:

• is she still losing weight?

congratulations!

re tongue tie - ds was a fussy feeder and I am convinced he was tongue tied too. but i persevered and it got better (the tongue tie that is. ) It might simply be tiredness/frustration though: a lot of babies go through a similar phase I tink. did the counsellor not give you any other suggestions?

my solution at the time was to just feed and feed and feed - I didn't give a bottle because dd quickly started to prefer a bottle.

cup feeding a good idea.

My DS was born with tongue tie...At 19mths he can now stick his tongue as far out as his bottom lip, but at birth - not so far.
Breastfeeding was awkward and he dropped from 10lbs to 9lbs in a matter of days.
He couldn't get a good grip and would cause me great pain, blood blisters and hours of consoling him whilst trying to get him to latch on.
However, it got better. I used plenty of nipple cream to soothe the poor nips. Before long I was desensitised, he was latching on properly and gaining weight.
I ended up feeding him for a year!

My ds had a tongue tie and i breast fed till he was about 7 months old without much problem.
The tie actually tore itself when he was a few months old, bless him.

Koalabear, first of all congratulations!

My mother, my brother and I are all tongue-tied. As far as I know, my mother was breastfed successfully, but for a short time. But as for us - this was the 60's when I believe bottle feeding was the 'fashion'- my mum said it was a nightmare for the first couple of months.

Apparently db and I took hours to drink a small bottle and cried incessantly for the first 6 weeks. It became that usual vicious circle; baby hungry, mum tired, frustration and tears all round.

With hindsight my mum says she wishes she had at least tried breastfeeding (although she did initially with me), it may have made things easier for everyone. In those days there was even less support for breastfeeding than there is today (so I'm told)

What I'm trying to say in my usual convoluted way is:

Kate may have guzzled the bottle only because she was hungry but if you want to breastfeed deffo try a specialist counsellor. But if expressed milk in a bottle is what she can cope with, that's great too

thanks all for thoughts
sorry delayed response - DD was admited to hospital for weight loss (no surprise there) and we've only just been discharged
we are going to carry on with the BF - spagblog - you are inspiring - thanks

Jesus. You are a superhero! Congratulations. I have flat nipples and really struggled for ages with breastfeeding but now my chubby, nearly five month old happily guzzles away. I really feel for you. Good luck whatever you decide.

...and if you don't find it is working out with your breastfeeding counsellor then try a different one - it is a very personal thing (like your midwife) and some people gel better with particular counsellors.

You need to see and BF Counsellor ASAP, as there can be some improvement with small positioning tweaks, and a HCP who is sympathetic to the potential impact of tongue tie on bf. Many paeds still don't accept that it can be the reason for a poor or non-existent latch. We've been there.

My dd lost 20% of her body weight in the first 6 days. Given the emergency of sudden realisation that bf alone was not getting enough into her, we started an emergency plan. We cup fed her (ebm supplemented with formula until my boobs caught up) while still offering the breast. It's tough - expressing every four hours, day and night, and cup feeding, but it can be done. A serious breast pump would help here- I had an Ameda Egnell one, hired through the ABM rep.

As dd regained her strength she started to get the hang of BF with nipple shields, which can help in these cases as they give the baby more to hang on to, but it still wasn't anything like "right"

Her tongue tie was diagnosed at 3.5 weeks, and we had it snipped at Southampton - which is the national centre for this, I am told. The improvement was immediate, and things got better from then on in.

She was weaned off her nipple shields by 8 weeks, and went on to be exclusively breast fed until she was six months. It was worth all the hassle! I would say that the cupfeeding was vital, as was the constant expressing to get the supply "ready" for the baby.

Hope that this helps; post again if I can be of any use in your situation. Every baby is different, but it really helped us at the time to know that others had been there, and that the moonlit sessions on the Ameda were worth it in the end.

koalabear if you are too far north for Southampton, I have recently heard that Mr Richard Stewart at Nottingham will snip tongue tie. He was mentioned in a midwifery journal by a desperate mum who had travelled 200 miles to see him.

The contact details for the Lactation Consultant at Southampton are: Carolyn Westcott
Phone: 023 8079 6009
Fax: 023 8079 8522
Email: [email protected]

She's fantastic. We got an NCT referral, and were seen and snipped the next day.

Good luck Koalabear, and hope that it all comes right soon.

Annner

Another tongue-tie mum here! It does get better! Ds's tongue-tie is now hardly noticeable! Never had an affect on his feeding but he is a dribbler now, can't seem to control his juices! I would recommend having a word with the GP and midwives too, they come across this all the time. They can cut it, apparently my MW said that it used to be practice that MW's kept a sharpened nail for such purposes! But these days they use local anaesthetic. Up to you. But it gets better, trust me!

If you want to try to feed your tongue tied baby breast milk using a bottle the system that works is the Playtex Nurser with a "naturalatch" latex teat.
This is so breast like it will avoid nipple confusion and hopefully allow the baby to swtich betwen the two.

There is a note on their website about a tongue tied baby - think it was on testonials.

UK site is www.infantcaredirect.co.uk
US site is www.playtexbaby.com