Tongue Tie?

[Stellardasher]

hello!

my son is 5 weeks tomorrow and I’m still struggling with breastfeeding. Being seen again tomorrow by the health visitor but no one has checked him yet for tongue tie.

does anyone have any experience in this, and do these photos look like potential tongue tie?! If not I’m at a loss for what’s causing so much pain!

thank you for any advice!

It is hard to tell from photos sometimes as you can’t feel how tight the posterior tongue tie could be, we had issues with breastfeeding and had to pay private oral assessments and cranial ostepath helped. Some babies have poor oral motor skills or tension due to birth, you think babies come out knowing how to suck but some struggle to do it efficiently due to issues.

P.S your baby is beautiful. And health visitors / gps aren’t the best at checking for tongue tie

Congratulations on your beautiful little boy

When you say you are struggling, what are you struggling with? Is he putting on weight? Is it hurting you still? X

Do you have a breastfeeding group / clinic nearby, I went and they looked at latch etc and said no issues and then picked up on the posterior tongue tie.

It’s difficult to tell from the photos. A classic tongue tie will alter the shape of the tongue.
The frenum, the band of skin attaching the tongue to the floor of the mouth inserts in a normal position and their tongue is comfortably almost touching the palate without the frenum causing the tongue to look like it has two tips.
Breast feeding early on is hard work and painful, no one really tells you this. Very young babies find it exhausting to feed it takes a lot of energy. You need to keep waking them up so that they can take in what they need. And a normal feed can take 40mins. They also tend to start cluster feeding as they grow rapidly. If you’re lucky this happens in the evening so you just get into bed and let them feed as much as they want.
As they get bigger their stomach grows so they are able to take a larger quantity which will sustain them for longer.
As long as they are gaining weight they are getting enough milk.
It’s one of the hardest things about bf, trusting that they are getting enough milk.
It will get easier.
Five weeks is about the time that they really start to stimulate your milk supply. Just cancel everything and concentrate on bf. Put on your comfy clothes, eat takeaways, drink plenty and just feed. In a week or so your supply will sort itself out and things will get better.

My daughter was lucky to be able to go to a breastfeeding support group when her baby was two weeks old. Her midwife did think the baby had a tongue tie but only mildly that would not get treated by the NHS because of waiting lists. At the group, they agreed that there was some tongue tie and pointed her in the direction of a private consultation for reassurance - obviously my daughter needed to weigh up the cost.

They did go privately, three days later, cost was £200 for the initial consult which included the procedure if it was necessary. The consultant was very thorough and checked to see if the parents also had tongue tie ( Dad did but had never been treated ) then discussed other potential concerns not just the benefits for breast feeding. The snip was done there and then and feeding definitely improved in a couple of days, the baby did not appear to have any problems but it seemed brutal to me!

I guess you could check if such a feeding group is available in your area, the one my daughter went to was organised by NHS midwives but led by volunteer coaches.

Yes this is definitely tongue tie! They are diagnosed with a percentage and I’d say this is 80 or 90% tied. Once snipped he will be sooooo much better 😊