Lip tie in my baby

[BunloafAndCrumpets]

Hello all. I'm after some advice if possible please. My DD (7mo) was born with a tongue tie. It was divided at 3 weeks and made a big difference to her feeding (mostly ff; bf didn't establish properly). At the time, several HCPs mentioned she also has a severe lip tie which may have interfered with her ability to bf, but in our area they don't do anything about a lip tie. Her dad has a lip tie and so do lots of members of my family so not that surprising really!

Her front teeth have now come through and there is a large (I would say width of a pound coin) gap between them. Now, this doesn't trouble me for cosmetic reasons but as someone who went through a lot of orthodontic work myself I am worried that this will create problems for DD in the future. Does anyone have any experience of this, and could you answer these questions for me please, or just give me some general advice? Thank you so much.

• will the lip tie mean that her other teeth are more likely to be crowded?
• is there any advantage to getting lip tie divided now / before her adult teeth come through?
• does anyone know anyone in the UK who might be able to give me some advice about this please? My dentist and the HV all gave me blank looks - but google says in the US there is a lot of knowledge about this. I guess I don't want to miss anything now that will cause trouble later.

You could ask your GP for a referral to an Oral Paediatric surgeon. I think they would be the best one to tell if your daughter will have problems with the adult teeth coming through, and whether the lip tie needs to corrected, and if so, when.

Good luck.

My DS has a lip tie and when his front two teeth came through they were really far apart too but by about 18m when the ones either side came through they came together. The lip tie looks uncomfortable to me but i've never noticed it bothering him so i will wait till he can talk and tell me before I look into having it removed. He had his tongue tie snipped too and our area doesnt do lip tie under any circumstances either.

Thank you Ozzie and Fem. Fem, that's reassuring thank you and seems like a sensible approach that I should adopt!

Ozzie, I'm not sure what an oral paed surgeon is - do you have experience of this in the UK - where would I find one/ would the GP know who to refer to? I am medical myself but not come across one.. have asked an ENT surgeon already but again got a blank look!

Thanks both for sharing experiences / ideas

Whoops sorry captain. I called you Fem by mistake there!!

Oral & Maxillofacial (OMF) Surgeons specialise in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases affecting the mouth, jaws, face and neck.

OMF surgery is unique in requiring a dual qualification in medicine and dentistry, and is often seen as the bridge between medicine and dentistry.

ukhealthcare.uky.edu/oral-surgery/
Your local GP should be able to access a list of these surgeon in UK as I don't live there. There should also be some appointed to UK hospitals who have paediatric wards. Good luck.

Thank you.