Breastfeeding and Tongue Tie

[AMC123]

Hi All,

Forgive the long post but I'd be grateful for people's opinion or own experiences if have ever been in a similar situation!

I had my LO after being induced at 42 weeks via EMCS due to failure to progress (he never engaged beyond 2/5ths even at 10cm after the synto drip!)

I had a lot of fluid during labour, I think three bags. Anyway he was born perfect with an APGAR score of 10, 10, 9 and weighed an impressive 8lb 4. Unfortunately we just were not able to establish BF straight away, he thrashed around and wouldn't latch. I agreed to give a small amount of formula (which I brought with me incase of an emergency, always planned and intended to EBF for 6 months) at birth after a good amount of lovely skin to skin. Planned to try and crack it later on, still no success. Was told that as DS was a CS he was full of mucous and that he wouldn't be interested in the breast until he expelled it, and to give him a little formula in a cup. This seemed to do the trick and DS coughed up and pooed out quite a bit of mucous! We tried the breast again! No joy, thrashing around and wouldn't latch. We kept up with lots of skin to skin and I started giving him hand expressed colustrum from a syringe. The BF counsellor said that she thought DS had query Tongue and Lip Tie.

When we took him home, and once milk 'came in' was advised to get him on the breast using a nipple shield and to express milk to bulk up supply. The NCT counsellor who visited us also said she could see a tongue tie.

DS fed and latched beautifully using nipple shield but was aware this was far from perfect but was so delighted to have him on the breast!

Anyway following week (Week 2) he latched finally (with some 'helping' with attachment!) I was so delighted that he was on and fed him whenever he cued for it, at night he woke up three hourly like clock work.

I booked an appointment to see a lactation consultant for further opinion who advised that DS had a treatable TT and said whilst feeding was seemingly ok, it could affect milk transfer. She advised that the procedure should assist with the problem I described we were having. We went away to think about the procedure.

However as the next week has progressed I've noticed quite alot of his feeding time is spent non nutritive sucking, or he falls asleep and I have to rouse him by changing his nappy, checking if he needs burping etc. He too needs still needs quite a bit of help latching and gets frustrated and upset when it doesn't happen straight away. He also compresses my nipple quite a bit which makes the process quite painful.

With regards to his nappy output, lots and lots of wet and 3-5 mustard seedy per day. With regards to his weight he initially lost 6% of his birth weight noted on his Day 5 weigh in, and by Day 14 he was back up to his birth weight plus an extra 4oz. So weight wise the MW/HV were satisfied.

He's been weighed again today and is up again by another 5oz (in 5 days) so had been marked bang on the 50th percentile but weighed in on the 75th percentile at birth.

I'm pleased of course he's gained weight and is not below where he should be, but I know his feeding just isn't 'cracked' yet and after some research a lot to the problems we've been having appear to link back to his tongue tie.

The long and the short of it is that we have booked him for the tongue tie to be clipped tomorrow.

Does anyone have any 'success' stories they can share after having the procedure?

Sort of a success story, I suppose: DS had no trouble latching on in the hospital, but the pain was excruciating. I was told it would go away after a few days, it didn't. My nipples were basically chewed on, bleeding, really painful, but since he was putting on weight I was told his tongue tie didn't need to be clipped. I had it done privately at 2 weeks and my nipples finally began to heal! Even though they seemed to heal relatively well, I think he never really learned to latch on properly afterwards and so breastfeeding has always been painful. We are combination feeding now (16 weeks) but looking to move to exclusively formula feeding over the next few weeks.

www.drghaheri.com/blog/2014/3/22/rethinking-tongue-tie-anatomy-anterior-vs-posterior-is-irrelevant

Both my kids had anterior TT. They were able to latch but feeding was painful and latch too shallow. Snip led to pain free feeding very quickly.

Yeah we had it cut at 5 weeks, we had no weight gain at 4 weeks and had to start formula top ups.

At 6 weeks she was back to birth weight and since then the weight gain has been fine.

We did spend a lot of time feeding up until 9 or 10 weeks cos it did effect my supply.

Good luck x

We had tt snipped at about 3 weeks. Weight gain haf been good but ds had been struggling to get and maintain a good latch, leaving him tired and windy and me rather sore. Big improvement afterwards for us, though it took him a few days to learn to use his newly freed up tongue properly - this may well take longer for you if he's only really latched on a shield before. The procedure was quick and didn't appear to distress him (he cried a little but less than he often does for a nappy change, and was asleep within 5 minutes)

Another "not quite success" story here. DS had a very noticable Tt (mw who delivered him and every subsequent mw who saw him noticed it). Feeding was agony,as pp said bleeding, chewed nipples and for the whole feed not just the start. At 10 days DS was still losing weight so we had to top up with f before he had his tie snipped at 17 days. Feeding became less painful almost straight away and my boobs could heal......but I found that once you've topped up it's very hard to get to ebf. We managed to get to around 1 bottle of f a day by 3 months then after around 4.5 bf gradually reduced and we stopped at 6 months.
I saw it as a bit of a success as I was told that it was more or less over as soon as I gave formula. I think I could probably have got to full ebf but it was such a difficult and painful start I really saw any bf as enough and tbh mix feeding really suited us. That said I really wish his Tt had been snipped on day1 then at least the choice would have been mine and it might have saved a lot of pain and grief.
Good luck with the snip-it's a really simple procedure.

TT sniped at 10 days & had been exclusively expressed BM fed before that once milk came in - I was lucky to have such a gd supply.
Only after TT snip would he go on with nipple shields which apparently double feeding times & when he fell asleep & knocked them off we were both soaking! I kept expressing too to ensure supply.
Inspired by a thread on here last wk I decided to wean off shields at 8 wks.
It has been a success no shields since Saturday but nipples are starting it get a bit sore - his latch can be really lazy, it nearly easier to wait until he is crying then shove handful of breast in while holding it in a c shape (big breasts)!
First weigh in after shields was only 2oz which HV wasn't too happy with but I kept arguing he had only been actually breastfeed for a wk as opposed to expressed feed. Next weigh in was fine & generally an oz a day.
I was all ready to call her bluff & say refer me to paediatrician instead of formula - such an easy answer to give IMO.
It's been a very rough journey but at 5/6 wks it started clicking in & continues it do so but you need a lot of support emotionally & physically to preservere.
My MW always said he wouldn't starve & it was a battle of the wits!

Thank you all! We had the procedure today and instantly his latch was pain free. We do however have to 'unlearn' some bad habits we both picked up and some adjustments to how I position him for a feed but hopeful for the future.

Ds2 had posterior TT release at c7 wks. I think. First few weeks were hell. He dropped from 85th to 25th centile and I got mastitis and breast abscess.

Success story is that he regained weight above his centile after the snip so he went back to 75th centile by the time weaning began at 6mo. No problems feeding & still going strong bf at 9mo.