tongue tie at 8 months

[jurassicpark]

DS has been a great feeder (piling on the pounds) but used to cry a lot at the breast. I put this down to wind as he was a back-archer. I'm now concerned that he may have been in pain due to a mild tongue tie. I never had any problems with his latch so I'm not too convinced but a couple of things have been noted recently. He has never protruded his tongue and never produced any speech sounds that require the tongue against the roof of the mouth. I'm not bothered about the fact he doesn't babble yet but he has never produced these sounds by accident. He screams mostly. His tongue also dips slightly in the middle when his mouth is open waiting for food.
I'm starting to feel guilty that I've missed something that has been bothering him for yonks. Oh, and he's crap at sleeping but I'm not quite ready to blame a mythical tongue tie on that yet.
Does this ring any bells with anyone? I've read here that things can sort out in time but, poor wee guy, he might be in pain - might he?

As far as I know tongue ties don't cause the baby any pain - just the mother. It could be one of many things going on with your son - you really need to find your local support and have a chat with them. Could he have reflux? Do you have a forceful let down?

Good timing. Just read a great blogg about mild tongue ties. I can't link to it but if u Google for analytical armadillo blog it should come up. Also the milk matters website lots of information on tt.

Sometimes tt can cause problems for the baby too, I was originally told Ds wind, colic was due by fast let down. It turned out to be that he couldn't use his tongue properly to handle the flow of milk. He was clicking and dropping the latch and gulping air because of the tt.

Problems for the baby yes but pain no I don't think so. And yes the blog is fab!

When you say his tongue dips in the middle, do you mean the end of the tongue? Like a heart shape? If so, that is a pretty sure sign of tongue tie as far as I know. I doubt it would be causing your DS pain from the actual feeding, though - but it could well cause the wind you mention through him sucking in extra air. Even if it's not causing him pain, you might want to think about possibly snipping it (if it is a tongue tie) since it can cause other issues with speech etc when he is older.

No pain at all with tongue ties, so don't worry about that. It should be fairly easy to tell if your DS has one - if the piece of skin that joins the base of the mouth and the tongue runs close to the end of his tongue, then that's a tongue tie. Your GP should be able to diagnose it fairly quickly.

In terms of repercussions, there is a risk in later life that a tongue tie may cause speech problems which is why they normally snip it a couple of days after birth (if it's picked up).

There are no nerves and no blood vessels in that piece of skin, so it doesn't hurt to do - however, the longer you leave it then the worse the chance is of your little one being too aware and too squirmy to allow them to do it safely.

My DS had one that wasn't picked up until a year old, and had to have general anaesthetic for all of 5 mins to get it done.

You can leave it, but at least if you get it done then if your DS does have any problems later on, you can rule the tongue tie out.

If it's TT and you want to have it snipped then you need to find out as a matter of real urgency. This is because of the methods of snipping available may be really reduced at 8 months.

Young babies will be snipped on the NHS without anaesthetic (which is fine) but older babies will be given a general anaesthetic. Depending on the area this can be from a couple of months old to around 6 months. However, some private TT IBCLCs will still snip at your baby's age provided there's no teeth but it's right at the cut-off point.

You may prefer him to have a general anyway, but I personally wanted to avoid the small risk involved in that when I had my DS's done at around your baby's age.

If you can't get any local help you can get a consultation by email from Milk Matters milkmatters.org.uk/international-service-tongue-tie-talk/ and if she feels it necessary she will most likely refer you to Ann Dobson. Ann has a useful list of TT symptoms here: www.ann-dobson.co.uk/tongue-tie_symptoms.html. She may not snip it, though, it depends on whether she feels he's too old and whether she can do so safely.

So that would leave you with the option of the NHS doing it under GA. Some regions don't, though, because they don't recognise that TT can cause problems other than BFing, or they prefer a wait-and-see approach to see if it affects speech. Therefore the sooner you get to find what options you have the better to ensure you have as many as possible still open to you.

HTH

BTW it can run in families so if you have another baby it's worth getting them checked as newborns :)