Tongue-tie

[quootiepie]

Hiya...
Just wondered what tongue tie was... ive seen it meantioned a few times, but dont know what it is... cheers

It's when the bit of skin that joins the tongue to the bottom of the mouth is too tight.
The result is that the newborn can't stick their tongue out, as they would normally do when feeding, to massage the underside of the breast, and get a good mouthful in.
It has varying effects on feeding, I suppose depending on the shape of the mother's nipples as much as anything.
It is only sometimes pointed out in newborns, despite the fact that it;s easy to check for and deal with (a quick, painless snip). Many health professionals don't really know what it is either, which as you can imagine, is a bugger if you are having problems breastfeeding.
In addition, the party line is that "tongue-tied babies can learn to breastfeed" - however not all counsellors are as daft as this, and getting the tongue snipped really early on can make all the difference.
[gets down off hobby-horse]

oh right, thanks

My daughter had a tongue tie, she couldn't poke her tongue out and it was 'fixed' to the floor of her mouth. It didn't need snipping, the HV told me they can 'stretch' of their own accord. She was a very messy feeder though, and I sometimes wonder if that is because she had to 'slurp' extra hard as there was less tongue mobility.

ds has a tongue tie. Local policy is not to snip. We could have waited to go private but as the dds were ill I switched to bottles.

Wow, nearlythree. I would have been livid. For my next child, should he/she have tongue-ties (as ds did) I am lining up my BIL, who's a GP, to do it no questions asked.
Bypass the whole crappy lot of 'em.

Our DS was tongue tied and no one in the hospital noticed even when I kept calling them in because he was on my boob for 20 hours on Day 3 and still had to be topped up with formula.

Our MW noticed when we got home but it would have taken at least 2 more weeks to get it sorted out and by then I was a complete wreck because of the amount of time he was feeding. On Day 6 he only woke up once in the night for a 15 min feed and it was like he was too tired/hungry to try properly. Day 7 I got mastitis and changed to bottle feeding.

I would have love to have breast fed but it just wasn't working. I don't know why they don't look out for it in hospital and do the snip then. Also why wasn't our MW allowed to tell the truth, she said it would make bf "difficult" but damn near impossible is nearer the mark.

Hi, my ds had a severe tongue-tie, couldn't stick his tongue out of his mouth, wasn't noticed (being my first child I didn't know any different and thought the tongue must grow as the child does! doh!), but thankfully HV looked into it and once we realised what it was I looked into it further on the net (GP hopeless). We got it corrected at 22 months as it was restrictive and ds could have been more prone to dental problems (hygiene and teeth alignment) if it hadn't. Unfortunately he still has the heart-shaped tip to his tongue (typical and most obvious sign of tt) so I dread to think about any teasing he may get when older, but he can dig food out from between his gums now and can stick it out a tiny way past his lips. Unfortunately his front teeth, top and bottom, have grown into the 'heartshape' too as apparently your tongue is very important in pushing out the front teeth.

Despite the tt and a bout of mastitis in week 2, plus losing weight for the first 4 wks of his life, we breastfed for 9.5 months and he's now a hefty 3.2 yo!

[this is not supposed to sound smug against those had to give up bf, it was a very difficult, sore, tiring ride, and I congratulate anyone who tries to persevere with bf, for however long, with a babe with tt]