taking in air whilst breast feeding

[Warwickmum]

Wondering if anyone has any ideas about this - am breast feeding dd of 17 days. She is gaining weight ok but whenever she feeds she seems to be loosing her 'seal' with most sucks and we are getting lots of noises that sound like she is taking in lots of air. She also seems to be having big trouble with wind at the moment - last night i tried to wind her before putting her down for sleep and got some up but then we went through 4 fitted sheets and two baby gros before she got to sleep as she is soaking them with subsequent burps I'm guessing. I remember a fair amount of little sickies with ds but sure it wasnt this bad. She also seems to have a degree of tongue tie from what I have seen - 'ligament' seems to be attached almost at tip of tongue although she seems to have good range of movement and midwife doesnt think will be problem, but could this be causing the loss of suction??
Mant Thanks in advance

Congrats on your DD :) How is it when she's feeding, is there any pain? One thing that may be causing it is oversupply or fast let-down, it sounds similar to some problems I had with DD2 when she was younger (it got better once my supply regulated). Have a read of this, see if any of it sounds familiar.

I keep losing my posts, grr.

Clicking, slurping and losing suction could indicate TT or immaturity in learning how to use the tongue when feeding.

See here for info on where to get TT diagnosed and snipped in the UK.

If TT, it's easiest diagnosed on a young, non-wriggly baby. Keep asking until you speak to someone who can help. Some HCP don't seem to believe it affects feeding.

So she's well and gaining weight, but the latch obviously isn't ideal and it sounds like this could be down to tongue tie.

Like orchidee, I think that many HCPs are ambivalent about referring tongue tie for the snip if it's not causing problems with weight gain. But there's no reason you couldn't keep pushing for a referral, also lots of lactation consultants will do it privately.

In the meantime you could try some positions that make it easier for her to maintain an effective latch, like biological nurturing. There is some helpful info here at Kellymom: www.kellymom.com/bf/start/basics/latch-resources.html

Both of mine have been a bit like this. DS1 had tongue tie (not diagnosed until 3 weeks), getting it snipped did help quite a bit. DS2 however definitely didn't have tongue tie (I made every health professional who saw him for the first few weeks check!), but still fed a bit like this. I don't think his latch was great - he just didn't seem to open his mouth wide enough. He was horribly windy for the first month or so. We didn't ever really "fix" it as such (although he fed much better in a biological nurturing position that in a traditional cross-cradle hold), he just got bigger and better at feeding (suspect his mouth just grew, and he certainly learned how to open in properly!). It might be something that she grows out of / learns to deal with herself (but do get the tongue tie looked into).

Definitely get the TT sorted out. Lots of midwives and other HCPs seem to think it's not a problem, but this is not always true. Even if your baby's putting on weight fine now, that mightn't carry on being the case as your supply switches from hormonally-driven to more supply-and-demand driven when he gets a bit older. Like your DD, my son swallowed gallons of air and was constantly sick and I'm sure the tongue tie contributed to this.

They use lidocaine gel to numb the frenulum and it's over in seconds.