Baby 5 days old, suspect posterior tongue tie, what do I do?

[Twattybollocks]

no matter how hard I try I can't get her to latch properly, it hurts through the whole feed, nipple comes off lipstick shaped every single time. I have a semi circle of cracked bleeding scabbed tissue at the end where the roof of her mouth goes. She is wanting to feed constantly but I can't face the pain as she is on for half an hour or more at a time and is rooting again within minutes.
Today I caved in and expressed and bottle fed her, she took 4 ounces in 15 minutes and slept for 3 hours! Bliss! Also she allowed me to put her down to sleep in the car seat (she won't lay flat)
I'm ringin the lactation consultant tomorrow, luckily as a
Peer supporter I know her well and I'm hoping she can help me. There's no obvious frenulum but she is lip tied and I have never seen her put her tongue out over her gums. When she feeds it feels like she is biting down on the base of my nipple with every suck.

I've been there. Posterior tt and lip tie. My advice would be to see the go and get it snipped privately. Whereabouts do you live? I know an excellent lady who snips privately in the Midlands. Only had to wait 3 days as opposed to 8 weeks on the nhs.
I had everyone - midwives, lactation consultants, peer supporters etc - telling me ds had a good latch and there was no reason for pain and constant feeding.
I knew something was wrong and fought for it! The gp said no tongue tie but they are not experts. Go private if you can, if not, push your gp into referring you to the ent at the hospital as quick as possible. If its easier, talk to your health visitor who can talk to the gp on your behalf.
My ds is now 6 mths and had his snipped twice. It does get easier. Good luck!

I know your pain!

There is a list of places where tongue ties can be divided here, but if you tell us what part of the country you are in, someone may know other options/clinics.

I took painkillers to help (the ones that they gave me when I left the hospital, and paracetamol). I also must have used a bucket load of Lanisoh, which my GP wrote a prescription for.

I did express for some feeds to give myself and my poor nipples a break (and also have a sleep, as DH could do the feed), and it didn't affect DS's ability to breastfeed at all.

Once the tie was cut, it made all the difference.

In the meantime when you do bf, try positions that allow her tongue to fall forward naturally, such as this laid back position. Gravity may help a little.

Where do you live? I had a patient once whose day old baby had one and when I phoned to find out what to do they said to send them up to A&E and the on call surgeon did it straight away. Speak to your GP in the morning maybe?

Well I'm going to put her to the breast for as long as i can bear it at every feed then top her up with expressed milk from the bottle. I'll try and get a supplemental nursing system sorted tomorrow, I can try to get hold of a very small ng tube from scbu and rig up my own sns, I can sneak it in under the nipple shield and I don't think she will notice it in there. Hopefully then she won't lose the idea of breast feeding!

I'm in west Yorkshire. Sadly my gp are invariably shite wrt bf issues, I've had loads of really bad advice from them in the past, including that the anti depressants I was given weren't compatible with bf (they are) and that there arent any bf friendly antidepressants, and bf makes pnd worse anyway so best just to stop.
I'm struggling with the hormone side of things, I just want to feed her normally and it not to hurt, I love bf her and seeing her little face peeping over the edge of my boob, blissed out with milk. I'm gutted, I don't want to stop.

With the right help and support, you won't need to stop. It's a shame that your GP isn't any help, but there are other avenues to try.

Your LC will probably be your best bet, but you could also try the hospital's infant feeding coordinator. There is also a baby cafe in West Yorkshire on Thursday. I don't know what it's like, or if it's near you, but it may be worth a try.

I asked anyone and everyone I could think of for help (La Leche League were good), and in the end found a lovely LC who referred DS to get his tongue snip. I felt despairing at the time, and just wanted it to be easy. Eventually it was. I hope it will be for you too.

Don't be too hard on yourself - you're in the middle of a difficult time, but it will get better.

Because I forgot to say before, congratulations on your sweet new baby.

this is a fairly new website that lists by region: www.tongue-tie.org.uk/find-a-tongue-tie-divider.html

Just keep expressing - 6 times in 24 hours ideally - to maintain your supply and feed ebm before formula (if needed). Lots of skin to skin. Good luck with finding some effective treatment quickly. x

Well that has confounded me, midwife visited this morning, she is slightly over her birth weight at 6 days! So much for weight loss. I wonder what's going on. Surely if she was tongue tied she would be struggling to gain weight? Nipples feeling better this morning, possibly due to having a rest last night as I expressed and bottle fed her the milk. She seems to be latching slightly better today too.

Not necessarily. My DS was tongue tied, EBF, didn't drop any of his birth weight and jumped up from the 2nd to 75th centile by the time he had his frenulotomy at 8 weeks.

Have a read through this to see if you identify with any of the symptoms listed:
milkmatters.org.uk/2011/04/15/hidden-cause-of-feeding-problems-however-you-feed-your-baby/

And congratulations on your baby!

My DS had posterior tongue tie and put on loads of weight because he was feeding for literally hours and hours. It took two GP visits, a lactation consultant and a very supportive mw but he was snipped at less than 4wks. The surgeon said he could only snip a tiny bit of frenulum as it was buried in his tongue but the difference was obvious. It took him a few days to relearn latch position but we are still happily bfing at 5 months :)
And congratulations!

I personally would have it snipped if I had my time again. Ds is 3.5, at birth I thought he had a tongue tie, MW said no. There were lots of other issues we got caught up with - dairy, soya, wheat, plus a hernia. At 9 months it still wasn't entirely comfortable to feed him, saw a bf counsellor and they said that actually it was tt and that was why it was still uncomfortable. Fast forward and he is still dribbling and has some speech delay, too late to do anything without a major effort. He is improving but I still have that niggling 'what if' feeling.

Great that she is latching better :)

DS (who had a posterior tongue tie) did not struggle with weight gain. He was over the 95th centile, which is one of the reasons I struggled to get a diagnosis.

The surgeon who snipped the tie (who was positively evangelical about not allowing a tongue tie to ruin a woman's breastfeeding experience) told me that in the early weeks, milk production is boosted by hormones. In my case, I had a bit of an oversupply to, so DS really didn't need to work too hard to get milk, but I was in agony. The surgeon said that problems may have developed later, when milk production was reliant on supply and demand (if that makes sense).