Tongue-Tied

[iOliver]

Anyone else been told their LO is tongue-tied?..did you get their tongue clipped? I've been told by an LC and other that it would help him latch better and be less painful for me if I were to get it clipped.. but I can't stand the idea of putting him through getting his tongue clipped, even though they say while their still newborn it's non-vascular, I'm sure it must still hurt?

[SubliminalDarkness]

Nope, doesn't hurt. There's no nerve endings. The baby usually cries just because someone is holding their mouth open and pushing their tongue back, but there's no pain.

Both my boys were tongue-tied. I didn't get DS1 clipped(I didn't know) and we were not able to continue breastfeeding.

I got DS2 clipped. It helped the situation, but didn't totally fix it because we also had other problems.

Tongue-tie isn't just about breastfeeding. It also affects feeding later on, can cause dental problems, speech problems, and so on. And when they're older, it becomes a much more significant surgery, involved general anesthesia and done in the hospital. If you have the opportunity to fix it now, I absolutely would. 

[haydn'smommy]

No, it's so much easier when they are little. I didn't clip it with my first, and Lord, how I wish I had. It affected his latch and it's affected his speech. Now it's better now that he's almost 4 (a fall at age 2.5 with a mouth injury ripped it apart *shudder*) but his speech is still screwed up. So, when Thing 2 was tied, I jumped on it. I called an ENT friend when he was only 12 hrs old and asked him to do it. We went in on day 2 of life and it took all of 2 min to numb it, clamp it and cut it. There was absolutely zero blood, and he nursed immediately afterward and was calm and content. It did wonders for his latch and I can already tell his speech will be so much clearer than big brother. It's totally worth doing and doing early.

[PatioGardener]

my ds isn't tied, but i had made arrangements to get it clipped soon after birth if he had been.  the procedure for a simple tie is fast and easy and they nurse within 10 seconds of it being over!

nak

[cappuccinosmom]

My two older boys are mildly tongue tied.  Nobody ever told me this until a dentist mentioned it last year, when they were 4 and 6 years old, so they never did get clipped.   I breastfed them both successfully until 18 months.  Apparently they compensated well, although it does explain the lisp of one of them, though we are working on that and don't need intensive therapy or anything. 

If it's bad enough to interfere with bf, I would get it overwith now.  Yes, baby will be annoyed, and yes you will feel bad, but it's for a tiny moment, and hopefully will have major benefits.

[ann_of_loxley]

DS1 was tongue tied and I got NO advice or help with this - it royally screwed up our breastfeeding relationship.  Ended up in me pumping full time and then eventually formula.  I did not want that to happen the second time around.  Both DH and I are tongue tied so I knew the chances of another baby being tongue tied were pretty high - and he was!  It was even worse than DS1!  So I got it clipped.  For me, that was better than a non-breastfeeding relationship. 

DS1 is still pretty bad.  It will have to be clipped sooner or later for dental health reasons.  He can't stick it out past his lower lip and he can't touch the roof of his mouth.  But, since I didn't know it could be easily done as a baby he will now have to go under general anasthetic to get it done - or wait until he is old enough to cope with a needle in his mouth to numb him up at the dentists.