Good idea to get Tongue tie snipped to prevent future problems?

[Bovnydazzlers]

My 5 day old baby was diagnosed by the midwife yesterday as having Tongue tie. Now she mentioned it, it is completely obvious to see, he has a heart shaped tongue and tie.
His latch for breastfeeding actually seems good. He is feeding constantly at times and seems unsettled when he sleeps (eg he fed from 7pm-3am continuously) and although he can be put down to sleep, wakes up rooting every ten minutes. I'm aware this is just as likely to be normal newborn behaviour or it could suggest ineffective feeding technique (and it's not sustainable for me to only have 2 hours sleep a day for too much longer!) He dropped 10% of his weight at day 3 but has slightly gained 40g since.

Anyway I'll book a GP appointment on Mknday to get a referral. My concern is that if we have no obvious breastfeeding problem, they won't refer or carry out the procedure to correct. My strong preference would be for it to be snipped now, in case it is affecting feeding efficiency, but just as much so that it reduces the chance of future issues with speech, ability to stick out tongue, which would lead to far more serious op under general anaesthetic. It seems the risk in the snipping procedure in a newborn are so small and no more painful than a heel prick test.

Has anyone been through this? Did doctor agree to snipping or was it a battle? And am I right in my risk assessment of procedure now vs risk of future problems?

My niece was born with tongue tie, in their area unless it was a problem with feeding it was left.
As they had private health cover they got it done at about a week old.
My brother was concerned it would possibly interfere with her speech and if it had to be done when she was older it may have been more traumatic.

My ds was born with tongue tie, they wouldn't do anything about it when he was born even though he couldn't latch on. Our gp referred him at 3 months and the consultant said they wouldn't do anything now and would prefer to leave it to see if it does affect him but we said if anything was going to be done we would rather get it done sooner than later, why let them struggle so she asked if we wanted it done there and then. She went and got scissors and cut it - ds didn't cry or anything, there was a little blood for about 2 minutes after it and that was it. he seems happier for it.

My DS had a tongue tie. Initially we had no problems breastfeeding other than feeding constantly which everyone said was normal. He didn't drop any weight from birth and had wet and dirty nappies. By the time he was around 4 weeks old it was turning into a nightmare. He still fed constantly for short spurts so he'd feed for 5 minutes or so, get knackered from the effort it took then fall asleep for a short time then wake again desperate to feed. At this time I also started to experience pain and discomfort. It took until he was 8 weeks old to get the tie revised and afterwards it was like he was a different baby! He fed for longer, was satisfied and so slept for decent chunks of time.

The risks are small when the procedure is done when they're so little. I'm glad I persevered with getting the referral for it and going ahead as I then went on to breastfeed him until he was 2 and a bit. We had the revision done at Kings in London and had to get a referral from a breastfeeding counsellor and either our HV or GP.

Yes I insisted my DS's was snipped in the hospital when he was 2 days old - I wasn't sure it was necessarily affecting his feeding but from what I's read on here I didn't want to take a chance!

DS1 and DS2 were snipped. No regrets. Hard to get anyone to take it seriously though. My GP told me to bottle feed instead.

First DC was tongue tied, nightmare to breastfeed after a week, gave up, he got it corrected as part of another procedure age 2. Second DC also tongue tied, I insisted it was done before we left the hospital, quick snip, spot of blood, fed right away no probs, no regrets at all, good luck and congrats new baby

My DD was fine for the first couple of weeks but then developed a terrible latch and cried a lot. My nipples were bleeding and it was awful. Having had no problems with DD1 I was determined to get it sorted. Had TT snipped and then she was a different baby. I would do it.

My son had his posterior tt snipped at 3 weeks. There were no obvious signs he had it, could stick out his tongue etc, only issue was I was experiencing severe pain in my nipples despite appearing to have a good latch.
He also fed very frequently, usually falling asleep at the breast, then waking hungry within half an hour.

After the procedure he managed to feed for much longer periods and was more satisfied after feeds. My pain improved immediately and was pain free within a few days.

The actual frenulotomy took seconds. The midwife wrapped him up in a sheet to keep his hands out the way and the surgeon snipped it with scissors. There was a small amount of blood (mixed with saliva so probably looked worse than it was). I then fed him immediately after.

I wouldn't hesitate to have it done again. I am a breast feeding counsellor and in my experience the majority of babies have an improvement in breastfeeding afterwards.

My advice would be get it snipped, ASAP. Both my babies had TT, latch was fine at first and no discomfort then it became agony, cracked and bleeding nipples and both 'fed' for hours on end but just could not transfer enough milk. My babies lost weight and my supply suffered terribly. My first baby's was snipped at 4 weeks, can't be live we managed to hang in as long as we did. My second baby's was snipped at 1 week because it kicked up a fuss and got an urgent referral. There was absolutely no was I was going through waiting weeks again.

Yes would also advise getting it snipped - I think you can have it done privately for about £150 if your NHS team can't sort it. I know that annoying when there's every reason for it to be done on the NHS. We didn't have an instant improvement after my son's TT snip at 8 weeks, but things certainly slowly got better after that (and they were horrendous before!)

So it literally would involve a doctor getting a pair of scissors and snipping the 'tie' yet they still try and find reasons not to cover on NHS? How ridiculous. The time taken to argue with parents is probably longer than the procedure itself.

I would 100% reccommend it. Dh still has a tongue tie and struggles even now with pronunciation of some words and is self conscious about it.

When dd was born she had a heart shaped tongue. We did have feeding struggles but it wasn't inpossible - just harder than it had been with ds.

She had it cut at 2 weeks. Literally a snip with scissors. Have never regretted it.

Thanks all for your replies. This is confirmed what I was planning to do- insist on the cut even if baby is gaining weight (albeit at the expense of my sleep!). I hope the referral isn't too long and doctor/specialist agree to it so don't have to fight for it.

As long as I get the GP referral next week then at least I can go private if the wait is long. I do think tongue tie care is a travesty - as per this article some people are made to wait far too long, for such a simple thing and to affect something as important is feeding it should be available on a next day basis in my opinion.

www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jul/12/tongue-tie-babies-delays-treatment-nhs-breastfeeding

Oh I also think it's a bit ridiculous how midwives can no longer make the referral, you've got to put a second step in between to then get a GP appointment then be referred onwards (assuming peadiatric missed it on their newborn checks as in our case). The GP referral appointment probably takes more time than the procedure itself!

In our case it was picked up in the delivery suite. And the second time around I told the midwives in advance that I wouldn't leave the hospital without having it snipped should DS2 have a tongue tie (obviously pregnancy hormones made me fierce!). But of course that didn't happen, we didn't get an appointment until 6 weeks after, the oral surgeon didn't want to do it at 6 weeks, saying she was only happy to do it in the first week after birth, and when I pointed out that the hospital's appointment scheme made that impossible, she gave in (oh, and I cried, saying I wanted to breast feed longer than I'd managed with DS1).

If only they could have an oral surgeon on call for the maternity wing, this would be so much easier.

My DD had a 70% posterior tongue tie that was affecting her feeding, NHS was useless but we found a lovely private lactation consultant who did it the day after we contacted her, was £150 and she came to us which was perfect.
No regrets here. If we had pursued an NHS route I think it would have been too long a wait to make BF possible.

Do push for it. In my experience they try and fob you off. Turning on the water works and hamming up just how much it hurt did the trick for me. Not 100% honest but I had to get it done and couldn't face having to wait weeks and potentially damage our BFing journey in the interim. So glad I did, got seem for the snip the very next day after a few tears

My dd was born with a tongue tie it was picked up at delivery fortunately, she latched well at first but then couldn't latch at all and unfortunately I gave up breastfeeding almost straight away. It was snipped at 7 days old not a nice experience but it's quick and they don't remember, dd's was very tight I was told by the consultant but he said we could wait and see if it affected her speech as she got older but if it needed doing then it would have to be under general so I opted to just have it done. I didn't realise it was so common they told me there was 68 babies having it done that day!

Definitely get it snipped. It takes two seconds and will help with feeding. Make sure that you do the little "exercises" though so it doesn't re-heal.

My DS was combi fed and his tie was so bad that he was even struggling to take a bottle, with the milk constantly leaking out of the side of his mouth. I had to change his clothes after every feed!

The GP was lovely and agreed best thing was to snip it now, so I'm not waiting for a referral which could take a couple of weeks.

Excellent news!

Excellent! Just chipping in to say my DD was found to be severely tied after 8 agonising weeks. We then checked her older brother who had speech probs, headaches and unexplained tooth decay (he was my pfb and I was a proper sugar Nazi so very baffling).
He had to have a horrible, painful and distressing operation to get it fixed at 7 yrs old. He'll need orthodontics as he grows.
Wish I'd known when he was tiny.