How can tongue-tie /lip-tie be such a prevalent problem recently?

[Blessed_Mom]

Hi,

7-day old and sleep-deprived. bad latch and getting checked for tt/lip-tie. was reading some threads here and seems like almost every second infant has a tt/lt. ana they can cause speech, dev delays etc later on in life?

how come this is happening so frequently recently. what did they do 100 yrs back? how come we dont have many parents,uncles,aunts etc with speech problems?

[Angelorum]

I believe knowledge about ties used to be fairly common, often they were just automatically clipped by the midwife or in the hospital if noticed.  The knowledge was kind of forgotten when breastfeeding went out of fashion, because babies with ties usually do just fine with bottles.  So, I don't think it's necessarily that there are suddenly more babies with ties, just that more people are aware of them now then in the more recent past.

[eggsandpancakes]

ive heard that midwives used to keep a sharp pinky fingernail so when they were checking the baby over they could just snip a tongue tie with a pinch and give baby back to mom. dont know how true ot is, but totally sounds reasonable.

[rnra]

Some of it can probably be chalked up to the internet and our (relatively newfound) ability to interact with millions of people from all over the world.  I don't think tongue ties are getting any more common than they used to be, I just think that we know have the ability to more readily connect with other moms who are having the same issues.  

[LilMomma83]

I agree that people probably were more aware in the past, also that we are connecting more (and I think awareness is on the (slow)) rise again). That said, I personally believe all of our toxins we get exposed to are increasing it some. tongue tie is,a midline defect, I know I read recently that three is Dionne thought midline defects are caused by folic acid (synthetic form of folate).....

[HappyHappyMommy]

Congratulations on your new baby!

I think that people are more likely to post about the things they have challenges with as opposed to things that going smoothly, so especially with message boards that can make the incidence of certain things look higher. I talked with a few different people when my baby had a tongue-tie and it seemed like the tongue-ties can cause a wide range of challenges (including difficulties breastfeeding and speech issues) for a person, but it really varies from tongue-tie to tongue-tie.

I hope all goes as well as possible with the evaluation for your LO's possible tongue or lie-tie.
 

[kythe]

In some generations of the past, most people formula fed and may not have noticed a tongue tie right away since it didn't affect feeding.  My son's tongue tie was fixed when he was 6 days old, because it took a lot of effort to find a doctor even willing to look at him.  The doctor we saw didn't care that I was trying to breastfeed, he was more concerned that I had to widen the nipple of a bottle to pour milk down his throat since he was unable to suckle.  Basically, the doctor clipped his tongue only because he was having trouble *bottle* feeding.  Nothing else would have gotten him to see a need to correct the problem at such a young age.  (Incidentally, he did learn to latch on and breastfed for 18 months).

That said, I did have a retired neighbor whose kids had been born during the 60's.  3 of her 5 children were born tongue tied and she said her doctor clipped them right away with no hassle.

[mum06]

Originally Posted by LilMomma83 

I agree that people probably were more aware in the past, also that we are connecting more (and I think awareness is on the (slow)) rise again). That said, I personally believe all of our toxins we get exposed to are increasing it some. tongue tie is,a midline defect, I know I read recently that three is Dionne thought midline defects are caused by folic acid (synthetic form of folate).....

I don't think toxins cause this "defect."  My son is tongue-tied, I am tongue-tied, my dad is tongue tied, his mom is tongue tied...see a pattern?  None of us were clipped, none of us have speech problems and none of us can stick out tongues out past our lower lips.  We don't feel defected at all.

[lifeguard]

Both of my kids have/had tongue-tie & lip-tie & no one irl was familiar with it - not even my doctor & the lactation consultant didn't know about lip ties. Like a pp said it seems more prevalant when you're looking at troubles people are posting. Fwiw - the bfing rate (at least to start) is really high in this area.

[LilMomma83]

With all due respect this is something I have put A LOT of time into learning about...it seems most people truly do not get the far reaching effects of TT. And it IS a defect. I DO agree it is genetic as well...I believe there are multiple factors to consider.

[dot1]

Originally Posted by LilMomma83 

With all due respect this is something I have put A LOT of time into learning about...it seems most people truly do not get the far reaching effects of TT. And it IS a defect. I DO agree it is genetic as well...I believe there are multiple factors to consider.

I've researched this a lot too.  In our case, purely genetic.  I have lip/tongue tie (but it did not pose functional problems, other than a tendency towards slow speech at times).  My mom never took any type of folic acid supplement in her pregnancies.  Both my kids have them and I ended up getting them treated with good results.  

I agree most people brush off the effects of TT/LT.   It is true that for some, it isn't a problem....but for others it is.  Unfortunately, the ones for who it is a problem get given the line of "Oh it's not causing your problems", when it indeed is causing problems (as in our case).   The truth is, the quality research is lacking - only the anterior tongue tie has had adequate research on its effect on breastfeeding.  The lip and posterior tongue ties are less noticeable, but can be just as problematic functionally.  However, since most of these babies can still bottlefeed, many get missed....and end up with speech problems and no one really knows why, and the poor kids endure years of speech therapy.   Now that there are some dental and other health professionals taking more interest, they are doing preliminary research into the effects of treating tt/lt with lasers.  I think we'll see more and more attention paid to this issue in years to come.

I was told in one of my research classes that it takes 30 years for research to actually make it into everyday clinical practice!  Egads - we have a long way to go!

For more info check out www.kiddsteeth.com - this dentist is a leader in the field and I hope that pediatricians, etc. will pay attention to his case study research.