Baby with tonge tie. Advice

[lisad123]

My Health visitor came for 1st visit today and has told me DD2 (2weeks tomorrow) has a tonge tie. I had already decided to go to breast feeding group on monday as dd has some trouble latching on, sometimes she gets it right first time other time it takes ages, and the trouble starts again when she pulls off
She's gaining weight well, she has gained nearly 2lb since her birth, so i know she's getting enough.
Any advice would be great, any way to make it easier??

Referal will be made to hospital on monday by BF HV, when she see's us.

TIA

DS has this and as I recall BF was a nightmare. However, I put this down to him being a crotchetty and impatient baby!

I used to use a breast pump to get the milk going and then entice him onto the nipple, making sure it was pushed in quite far.

Sometimes the breast pump drew my nipple out a long way which helped!

Keep going, it gets easier. Also the tight skin holding their tongue can stretch.

Hi lisad123, both my ds's have tongue-tie. I bf-ed ds1 until 13 months and am still feeding ds2 (now 15 months). Its difficult to know whether they had trouble latching, I did get very sore nipples with them, but also got those with dd who isn't tongue-tied. The doctors and hv's said they didn't routinely cut the tie unless there was diffuculty feeding, which since they both gained weight presumably they didn't. Ds1 was a very slow feeder compared to dd, but it may also have been that I couldn't tell the difference between him feeding and just sucking for comfort. We did get ds1 cut when he was 5 as it was wearing away his baby teeth and we wanted it done before his big teeth came through. It was day op, and for him the worst was having lines in for the GA rather than pain from the cut. Some doctors will do it in the office with no anaesthetic on little babies.
Sounds like you are getting on well, maybe she just needs more practice latching on. Their mouths are so little at that stage. Good luck

HV said they will properly cut it, and it wont take long, no need to have GA, so should be fine.
BF is a struggle, and she often chokes while feeding, and sometimes is painful. I think it would be better to be done now while she's little.

my DS had this we had it snipped when he was a week old. Made a massive difference to his feeding. It was done in the consultants office took 2 secs no anesthetic involved. He barely whimpered and the effect on him latching on properly was instant.

In the area I lived it, they refused to snip it. Instead I was advised to wait until DS was 3yrs old and have the full works under GA.

He is now 3.5 and the tie seems to have loosened considerably.

hi I have had two friends whose babes had tongue tie and they both went for the snip, which is a really easy operation and more and more places are doing it. If there's going to be a delay on the NHS you can even get it done privately and it's not expensive at all.

My neighbour found it really made a huge difference to the breastfeeding and I know from what both my friends said that the latch can be very painful when a baby has tongue tie. Plus they are taking in a lot of air at the same time so often are very windy and upset.

There's a comment at the bottom of this webpage from someone who had the op done at Kingston this May (it cost £60)

The guy in Southampton is called Mervyn Griffiths and his secretary is on 02380 794144.

I also found an interesting article on the ABM site. It's the third link under the 'Initial Problems' heading:

Also, earlier on in the year, people on the 'Breastfeeding UK & Ireland' Yahoo!Group were discussing wind and tongue ties. If I remember rightly you do have to send an initial request to join, and then your first posts are monitored, just to make sure you are who you say you are. But they can be a good source of support.

I hope this isn't too much information! (I do tend to go overboard in my answers to people sometimes .)

Liasd123, if they are willling to do, I would definitely go for it. I would gladly have had both of them done as babies, it was much more hassle for ds1 at 5. I asked the surgeon whether he could just do ds2 (who was a few months) quickly there and then, he looked at me with such horror that I should have suggested anything so barbaric, that I thought they were going to call social services or something!
Its great if your team will do it when they are little, I really don't think it causes much pain and it sounds like others saw big improvements in feeding, I guess I won't know if it would have made a difference to mine.

also she feeds better on one side, but often chokes on her milk and her dummy is this part of the tongue tie??
Hoping the BF Hv can advise on better latch until we can get to hospital.
Thanks for the advice.

Lisa

Get a second opinion. Told DS2 had it, worried for months. Was fine.

thanks nab3 but dont think its needed, i thought she might have been tongue tied when i started BF.

Ds1 had a tongue tie and it was snipped at 5 weeks. He choked a lot but my supply was fast so that didn't help.
The snipping of the tie was quick and his feeding was checked straight after. Breast milk will also help the healing. It helped the feeding loads.
Hope you can get it snipped soon xx

DS had his tongue tie snipped at 10 weeks as his weight gain was dropping off. It was not a big deal at all - he screamed for a second but within 5 minutes he was smiling. I was way more traumatised than he was. The dr said that his suck was so weak that it was amazing he'd managed to breastfeed at all. The snip made a dramatic difference to his weight gain and general contentment.

I think my health visitor was surprised that i have managed to breast feed for the last 2weeks , i had just been telling her how hard it is to get dd latched on, I had considered tongue tie but also thought it might have been as she is little.
Im feeling a lot better knowing so many have had it done and it doesnt hurt.
We have to go to bedford hospital (we are in herts) but she said it doesnt take long at all.
Im surprised to peads didnt pick it up, i saw two in hospital, and both checked suck reflex.
Hope its done quickly, and then can stop nipples hurting, when she starts to chomp on them, and i dont get her off quick enough

ds1 had a strong suck reflex but just couldn't open his mouth wide enough to get a good latch. It wasn't picked up until I went to the b/f counsellor at 4 weeks. I kept telling myself it was my fast let down that made it hard for him