Tongue Tie and Stretches

[TTQuestion]

Hello, I'm British but In the USA, I have a 7 month old who has an apparent tongue tie not picked up at birth. Also a lip tie which was but which I chose at the time not to have removed. I haven't taken steps to fix this yet partly because of what I write below but I have to face it now as she's struggling to eat any solids.
Anyway on all the US sites and a Facebook group I'm on I hear all the mums talking about the need to stretch the flesh around where the snip was made either to the tongue or lip or both multiple times a day post-op for 3 weeks, which greatly distresses the baby due to the pain. Not doing so can lead to reattachment.

I've never heard these stretches mentioned on here. And a quick search yielded no results.

Is it a thing to stretch baby's mouth post snip in the UK too? Does the NHS recommend this? If not it would lead me to think I may not have to do them

I asked our TT consultant about this. It isn't practised in the UK at all (bar one clinic in London) and is felt to be cruel and to inhibit breastfeeding as baby associates feeding with pain. You won't see it recommended in the UK, NHS or private.

Ooh interesting. I wonder if there are many reattachments then as I've hardly ever seen that mentioned either.

Our TT practitioner also said that it was far too cruel. She did however suggest other "tongue exercises" to be carries out at every nappy change.

One was to touch the lower gum with your little finger on the left and wait until your baby moves their tongue to lick your finger, and then repeat on the right. The other was just allowing the baby to suck on your little finger (with the nail facing down to the tongue) as much as possible just to encourage movement.

She said that the vast majority of her patients didn't reattach but I don't have any proof other than no reattachment for my baby.

Sorry, forgot to add that those exercises were advised for a couple of weeks!

My baby had her TT snipped at 2-3 weeks old and bf was agony. No exercises given or recommended however at that age they scream you feed them it's over...

Thanks all for the perspective. I'm not sold on having it done yet at her age, lots to think about, but very good to know these barbaric looking stretches are not mandatory!

Hi! My little girl had a posterior TT cut at 6 days old. We were told no stretches were necessary as during the procedure, they do a stretch of the tongue. We had slight improvement feeding, then down hill again and found that a lot of scar tissue had formed around the wound- which was actually more restrictive than the original TT. This was cut 9 weeks... fingers crossed we have had improvement with no sign of further complications (16 weeks now).

This time I asked a lactation consultant for advice on exercises. Again was told they're not helpful but that movement of the tongue was best; feeding every 3 hours around the clock for 5 days. We tried this with success!

Hope this helps!

The little boy I know that struggled with solids due to TT also had speech issues so ended up having it done at 2-3 years - really horrid for them all. I personally would recommend getting it down, don't deny your DC the pleasure of licking ice cream cones!