Should I get tongue tie divided?

[fionnthedog]

Hello all. I have a 6 week old who was diagnosed at birth with tongue tie. I was told in hospital that it might affect feeding but for the first 5 weeks I've not had any problems exclusively breastfeeding.

However, the last week has been awful and getting worse. DS will only feed for about 7-10 mins and then comes off and screams. I cannot then get him to latch back on at all. Sometimes if I wait 10/15 mins he'll latch onto the other side but the same thing happens. I initially thought he had wind (and sometimes he does!) but even after he's burped he won't latch back on at all and screams.

He was feeding approximately every three hours but is now having to feed every 1.5/2 hours which is exhausting and stressful. I am sure I am making it worse by being stressed too.

I wondered if anyone had any advice as to whether these problems might be caused by DS's tongue tie? Is it normal for problems to manifest after a while of no issues? I am aware that he may be going through a growth spurt (has just started smiling!) so more regular feeding wouldn't
T bother me; it's that when he feeds he seems unable to get as much as he wants / needs.

I have no nipple pain but they often are 'lipstick shaped' after feeding (and have been since birth). Ds is gaining weight but slowly and has dropped slightly off his centile (25th).

Help?

From mother to mother no breastfeeding is ever the same and some days you can find yourself constantly trying to feed your child. My son had colic whrn he wad a baby and this affected all his feeding as he would keep crying in pain and not want to latch back on. Don't give up on it though sometimes being persistent is key. And I find that rubbing nipples with the milk after feeding can help with any soreness. Hope it works out x

No two tongue ties are the same.

Untreated tongue tie can cause lifelong problems throughout the whole body.

It is not just about feeding.

I would suggest you have an assessment by somebody who is an expert. Tip - that's probably not going to be your GP or HV.

My DD's TT caused more issues/unhappiness as she got older and wanted to get more food at once. I have heard this is quite common for posterior tongue ties ie they don't cause the immediate pain of an anterior tt but problems show up later.

I'd get it cut. There is very little downside AFAIK and lots of upside.

I'm in the same position, except DD is now 10 weeks and BFing has only just (in the last couple of weeks) started to get painful, noisy and overly gassy! She fed like a dream the first few weeks.

I'm getting the TT divided at the end of this month (the earliest NHS appointment we could get). I figure it couldn't do any harm, although I'm sure it'll be distressing for us both.

Dd had her tt cut at 2 weeks and the difference was instantly noticeable. Not just on the immediate absence of pain for me during feeds, but when the nurse brought her back to me straight after they'd cut her and told me to try feeding her, dd had the biggest longest feed of her life so far and slept for about 4 hours solidly afterwards. Any lingering doubts I had about doing it were dispelled immediately.

My eldest is now 14 (yrs!) and has a tongue tie. When he was a baby the midwife told me it wouldn't affect his feeding and I believed her. So I thought it was my fault that he and I had bout after bout of thrush (his mouth, my nipples), that he couldn't latch on properly, that I had permanently sore and cracked nipples, that he never seemed settled - always seemed hungry etc etc. It was only later that I was told it was probably all as a result of his tongue-tie. It didn't affect his speech and has stretched over the years so he's now fine. If you want to breast feed my instinct would be to say get your baby's tongue tie cut. I cried my way through 4 months of breastfeeding before giving in and part bottle feeding and I wouldn't wish it on anyone! Good luck!

I would get it cut. My first was severely tongue tied but we were told it shouldn't affect feeding. I was in agony when we got it done privately at 4 weeks.
My second baby is now 7 weeks and we had her tie cut last week after again being told it shouldn't affect feeding. This time, I wasn't in pain but could see signs that she wasn't getting enough, and she'd get very frustrated especially during cluster feeding. I did breast compression to help her, but ended up with mastitis.

The division was pretty traumatic for both of us and she was very distressed by it. But I'm glad we've had it done. On the nhs this time.

I'd try to get to a breastfeeding support group for an expert assessment. Good luck

I would recommend doing it now. We were unaware dd1 was tongue tied until weaning, when she had problems moving hard food around her mouth. Also some subtle speech issues (yeyyow for yellow). But eating difficulties persisted and were affecting food choices, so she had op aged 2.5yrs which required general anaesthetic. All was fine with surgery but I wish we had known when she was a baby and could have had simple snip.

Like you I thought I had no problems bf, although she was colicy and used to thrash on the breast as she got older. She tracked her birth centile 25th perfectly but on weaning shot up to 75th so perhaps was struggling to get enough without me realising. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Dd2 (now 4 months old) we had assessed and snipped asap although again no apparent feeding problems, but just wanted to avoid future surgery if at all possible. Dd2 has tracked 75th all along so iI think we made the right decision.

Also dd2 one week old went into snip appointment asleep and came back to me asleep so I don't think she was too traumatised!

I would get it done, I was convinced ds had a tongue tie and noone would listen to me, I had lots of problems feeding, had to express and had the lipstick shaped nipples like you said. I had to switch to formula due to my medical problems anyway, but I am annoyed no one would believe me.
They can stretch and change so that's maybe why you haven't had problems so far.
Ds eventually got diagnosed at 9 months and is getting referred to a specialist, if I got it cut now it would be under GA, which I'm not doing. But want to be in to the system incase he has speech problems.
If I had been offered to have it cut at weeks old I would have.

Thanks everyone. I have booked an appointment privately to have ds assessed and snipped if necessary on Monday. I think it's the right thing to do though am still upset at the thought of distressing him unnecessarily. He's fed better today but still a fair amount of thrashing and screaming which I am convinced is due to frustrration at not getting all that he wants as pps have said.

Wish me luck - will update Monday...

Good luck - it will be worse for you than it is for him.

Good luck. I put the part about her being so upset because when she was all we heard was how painless the procedure is for them. I think the younger the better, and most babies aren't too fussed. But dd was very distressed at the time, hours later and again when it reopened. I'm sure you'll be fine, but it's nice to know it's relatively normal if not!

My son's tongue tie was divided early due to bf problems. Watching him use his tongue now to help make new sounds for speech, sticking it out for fun or when concentrating, I know that if the baby I'm currently carrying has a tongue tie, I won't even wait for bf problems to occur - we'll call the lady who does it asap and arrange for her to do it. It would have been such a shame if he hadn't had free use of his tongue for the rest of his life, just for the sake of £100 or so.

Hello again. Had the division this morning and it has been very traumatic for both of us. Lots of screaming and refusing to feed either from breast or bottle. We have managed to get him to take some milk from a bottle and he has latched onto breast once for about 5 mins.
I'm feeling pretty wretched about it - does anyone have any advice?

Oh no - was it very bad? I'm scared now!

Sorry - not overly helpful, but commiserating with you!

Hi. Sorry to hear it's been traumatic :( if it helps, for us the refusal to feed and the hysterical crying only lasted for that day. It's horrible though, I feel for you.
Hope he's feeling better soon.

And the only way I got dd to latch was by getting myself to letdown and then she wouldn't have to suckle as hard, particularly with my jet stream force! We co sleep so I just had her alternately screaming and feeding all that night.

Hopefully your ds is feeling better by now though.

Just wanted to update: ds has finally latched and fed beautifully both sides. It's been around 12 hours since the cut but I think we're finally getting there. This us mostly for blueberrypudding!

My DD was pretty upset in the hours after her division at 10 weeks. Calpol did the trick.

Glad to hear things improved. How is he today?
Out of interest, have you noticed a difference in his ability to stick his tongue out? Our baby still can't seem to put hers beyond the lips and it seems to pull into a heart shape still. I couldn't face going through it again... :(

Hey Misty,

Ds hasn't yet stuck hs tongue out but I think he probably will be able to when he has more control; it doesn't appear to be heart shaped any more. Do you think your baby's has reattached? Have you noticed a improvement in how she feeds? I was not sore before but I can feel the difference in his suck.

Really wouldn't want to go through it again so fingers crossed you don't have to...

I wasn't sore before either and can't really tell if feeding is different. I suspect it wasn't cut properly in the first place as it was still pulling into a heart shape straight after the operation :(

We've got 8 week check tomorrow so going to ask doctor to have a feel.

My ds took a few weeks to get used to his new tongue after division at 8 days. Now 9 months I'm still bf with no issues & he still has a heart shaped tongue