Tounge tie. What if I leave it?

[mrsnec]

Ds had his 3 month check today.

I'm not in the UK. Paediatrician diagnosed tounge tie. It's not been mentioned before. I did give up bf after 5 days and it wasn't diagnosed in hospital. She said they wouldn't have done and that here they don't see it connected to feeding problems.

So, my local hospital only does the procedure under ga.peadiatrician recommended going private and recommended someone who does the procedure with a laser. The thing is she said she had one too which was never treated and she was comparing the severity of ds to herself. She's got what she considered to be a speech impediment whereby she can't roll her rs. I can't do that either and it's never been a problem. I could get a consultation but if it's a very minor procedure I might as well just do it as the clinic is quite a distance from where I live.

If that's the only issue I'm a bit reluctant to get it sorted but I've googled it and feeding problems and dental problems are mentioned but only vaguely and older threads just seem to mention cases diagnosed much earlier to help with bf so I'm interested in anyone who left it untreated or treated it later on.

I got Ds2 done when he was 1 mainly because I think leaving it means the person has to learn to use their tongue again to talk as its a muscle. His was really bad so he couldn't stick his tongue out.

It was very simple, done in about 5 mins. He was fine and was eating a sandwich when he woke up. So it's not a huge operation.

That really makes me angry - they don't think tongue tie affects infant feeding??! The flexibility of the tongue is a key element in baby's ability to draw down the milk.

My tongue tied baby struggled just as much with a bottle; she would cough and splutter, and I had to consciously keep the flow of milk very slow during a feed. I had to give her many breaks to catch her breath. She was a mess, too, with milk always dribbling out of her mouth.

Sorry for the rant. In your case, perhaps the pertinent question is whether or not your baby is struggling now. I have five DC; TT is genetic and all of them have it to one degree or another. Only the youngest had significant feeding issues that led us to pursue separation. I'm obviously not bothering with the older ones unless they have dental issues. They are fine.

My dd is 4 months and has tounge tie so I'm watching with interest.

It did make breastfeeding bloody difficult and painful but we got there and it's mostly fine now. We were advised to not get it cut and see if it stretched at all. It definitely has a bit but it is still quite noticeable.

DS had tongue-tie that affected feeding but we chose not to get it snipped. He's four now and speech, eating etc all fine. The problem is you just can't predict what will happen.

DS just grew out of his. It looks fine now and he hasn't had any speech issues.

Thanks everyone.

I was surprised at that comment because I know of a few people in the UK who had theirs done very early because of bf issues. I did have problems with my supply and he had jaundice and hypoglycaemia so I had to top up every feed from the start. I was also nil by mouth for 3 days and he was born 3 weeks early by cs so I put the feeding problems down to that. I don't have an issue with ff anyway and I only bf dd for 2 weeks but I would be interested if that was caused by it too. I had one on one coaching with the bf and nobody spotted it.

I was wondering if it would be a problem with the weaning stage.

It also seems to be as I thought that you can't predict it.

He doesn't really struggle too much with feeding now except I have to switch between two bottles because he has comfort formula as well and the only bottle we can use with it is a very fast flowing one and sometimes there's a problem with that unless it's at a specific angle.

I got ds1's tongue tie snipped at 18months under GA. The kind of tongue tie he had caused saliva to pool in his mouth and he drooled like I've never seen before. I'm talking 4 shirts a day countless bibs it was awful. I started googling and asking around and was hearing stories of kids still drooling at school age etc so I had him done.

He's now 6 with no issues at all.

This might not be the same with you DC though I don't want to worry you, the doctor did say the kind he had caused this pooling meaning other kinds didn't I suppose.

Also on the speech front we noticed a change straight away he was much more chatty just the next day but that might of been us reading too much into it!

MIL is severely tongue tied she can't move her tongue really or stick it out at all, can't lick an ice cream and in fairness it's caused her no problems at all.

My youngest was tongue tied, we had it snipped at about 5 or 6 weeks old. HV said it was only minor so not to worry about it if we didn't want to, dh and I decided to go to appt to be seen by the specialist nurse and we're glad we did, his tongue tie was 90% and would've affected him eating and speaking etc. He's almost 6 months now and doing well with weaning. It's worth a second opinion but as your child is older I guess it depends on whether they'd be able to do it now or wait and do it under GA at s later date

Jammy, what age did the drooling start?

Think I might find someone else locally to give me a second opinion, I feel like they both have little health niggles that may or may not sort themselves out.

My son has a tongue tie. They didn't seem to think it was a big deal when I had him, and I refused to get it snipped as was literally in no position to make any decisions and coudn't bear my baby having any pain. I totally forgot about it until he was referred to Speech and Language therapy a week ago. Wish they had talked about it properly at the time rather than saying "Can we snip his tongue, no? Ok then" which is basically what happened. Im really hoping this isnt the cause of his linguistic delay.