Tongue clipping

[splash]

Might be way off topic here!!
I used to work with a lady with a little boy. His name was Antonym (horrible name, I know). Anyway... they claimed to be soooo AP. But they bottle fed, didn't cosleep, never used a sling, and circ'ed him. Ummm... I don't get it.
Anyway, that's not the point.

He was born really tongue tied. They kept making appointments to have it clipped, but backed out. Finally at a little over a year, when he still wasn't eating solid foods (actually he could eat fine... I know this from the times I sat for him and fed him like any other kid... but they would not feed him anything but stage one baby foods because they were convinced he would die otherwise) they made THE appointment... went so far as to sign the consent at the hospital, and then backed out.

They said that they didn't want to hurt him... that he could learn to live with it or make the choice himself when he was older... and that it wasn't medically necessary.

But they freakin CIRCUMCISED HIM!!

And I just found out that their second son was born last week. Also circumcised. But poor Antonym still hasn't had his tongue clipped.

That makes NO sense to me.

I certainly don't tie tongue clipping with circumcision. I mean, sometimes the tongue HAS to be clipped. I guess. But still... it does NOT make sense to me AT ALL.

[pjlioness]

I guess they believe the old myth that circ. doesn't hurt. Very wierd situation.

[Pandora114]

Tongue clipping = Medical benefit. It allows the child to EAT.

Circ = No Medical Benefit.

That's all there is to that argument

[sadkitty]

That is wierd. My DCs are/were both tingue tied. I never knew that was dd's problem unitl she was 7 years-old. That's right YEARS! She has a snake tongue, but I had no clue that was why she always latched with her teeth. She now doesn't want it clipped and it never interfeared with her speech.
Ds we got clipped at 6 weeks in our ND's office and he never cried and smiled and nursed right after. His latch is still awful, but breastfeeding is just what you do and the nipple pain goes away after the all to short time we get to be that close to our babies.

Neither of them are circumsised though.

[USAmma]

wow I really don't see the logic of that at all. Clipping is supposed to be not that painful and it's considered a mild birth defect if it's bad enough. Obviously being born with a foreskin is not a birth defect and doesn't affect someone's ability to function.

My dd is mildly tongue tied. She can eat okay, but lisps. Since she's not quite 2 yet (bday on Friday) I am not convinced that the lisp is related to her tongue tie or she's just talking like a toddler.

[Quirky]

Well, duh.

I wonder, though, whether the docs and nurses fed them the line about circ being a fairly painless, "baby slept right through it," kind of thing. I mean, they're concerned not to hurt their baby....maybe they just don't really know how much circ hurts. Trying to give them the benefit of the doubt!

[No2Circ]

I've read some about tongue clipping being unnecessary and painful, as well. But I get your analogy.

[megmas]

That's just so ridiculous.

OT: No2Circ, I too have read some places about tongue-tie clipping being unnecessary and painful. But I totally disagree! My son had a moderate tongue-tie, so that his tongue was heart-shaped. He latched on right away, but couldn't stretch his tongue forward very far (necessary for proper latch), and got very tired quickly when he nursed. He'd just quit after 5 minutes at the most.

I didn't feel like he was nursing long enough, so I decided to clip it. I did it myself, since it's such a simple procedure, and I could not see subjecting him to a doctor's office for this at less than 2 weeks old. I clipped it with new nail scissors when he was already crying. There was one drop of blood, he nursed right away, and did not cry again. He was then able to easily move his tongue over his gums into the right nursing position.

I don't regret it for a second. His older cousin had the same tongue-tie, and his cousin has had trouble with lisping and with rolling his R's (important when Spanish is your native language!) Not every tongue-tied child will have problems, but for those that do, this procedure can be such a simple, safe procedure. I feel pretty confident that, at most, it caused my son a little soreness for a day.

[Lula's Mom]

OMG! That post by megmas was ME. I'm at my sister's house, and her kids' names are Meg(an) and Mas(on). So that's her login, though she's never posted. Ooops! How ironic is it that megmas is an anagram of smegma?

[Quirky]

Originally Posted by Lula's Mom

How ironic is it that megmas is an anagram of smegma?

: : :

[splash]

There is another woman on a mainstream board that I am on talking about it today... and saying she is worried about it hurtin when she clips his tongue... but she had him circed at a day old!

[channelofpeace]

It is things like this that make me

[LeosMama]

Yeah, really.

Let's slice off a huge chunk of his PENIS! and not worry about the pain? But freak out about a nick in the tongue frenulum? I'm not saying that tongue clipping isn't painful, I've never seen it done. But when tongue clipping is necessary, it's REALLY necessary, meaning a baby can't eat and h/er speech development may be affected. There are gray areas from slight tongue-tie that is a little uncomfortable for the b/fing mother to heart-shaped tongues that prevent nursing altogether.

You certainly can't pretend that having a foreskin is ever a problem. You don't die from having a foreskin. And I've never heard of anyone having any problems from getting their lingual frenulum cut.

[cornflower_3]

*

[gabysmom617]

nak, but had 2 respond.....

Originally Posted by splash

.....

They said that they didn't want to hurt him... that he could learn to live with it or make the choice himself when he was older... and that it wasn't medically necessary.

But they freakin CIRCUMCISED HIM!!
...

: :

pure riculousness.

[lilyka]

this is actually the argument i used when our ped said the tounge clipping wasn't nessecary. i told him so long as he would circ a child for no good reason I shouldn't have to justify this. it was much safer, less painful and 100% more nessecary.

and for the record it doesn't really hurt them any more than a shot, finger prick or biting thier tounge. She latched on (perfectly I might add for the first time in 6 weeks) right away, instantly, and nursed for about 5 minutes and was over it. There was no prep (ok the Dr. who usually only saw old people hugged and cooed at her for about 5 minutes but everyone should realy have that kind of prep before surgery there were two drops of blood. the biggest complication is that it might heal bck up right away. From the time I penned her down until she was latched on was under 60 seconds. If we had felt really bad about causing pain we could have used a little oragel. they don't recommend the oragel because it could cause them to not use their tounge right which could result in it healing back up.

i can't believe someone would circ but be worried about this. heck I can't believe anyone would vaccinate and feel bad about this. it really is nothing. And there are more problems than eating. i really don't understand Dr.s hesitance to have this done. It is so simple and helful when needed. On the upside it could rip on its own. My youngest finaly tore hers. We couldn't afford to have it clipped. ($800 starting) and wasn't brave enough to do it myself. I should have just done it. I could go on but I digress. . . .

[Bm31]

I don't know exactly what this procedure entails, but FWIW I once read a guide on body piercing where they rated they different types according to pain. I think they gave the tongue 4 on a scale of 1 (stubbing your toe) to 10 (slamming a finger in a car door). They basically said that the tongue is full of taste buds, but not so much for nerve endings.

[lilyka]

this is actually the flap of skin under the tounge, not the tounge itself. there is some feeling there but not much. If you lift up your tounge you can flick it back and forth. it would smart a little but not much I would think. Like i said, my dd was mroe offended than in pain. once she latched on she was over it. Unlike a circ which hurts like a MF for days, weeks, (months or years if it is botched or infected). Also unlike a circ. there is little risk for messing it up, nothing is removed, it can heal back to it original state (dd#3 did : glad we didn't pay for hers ), and heals almost instantly.

[SumnerRain]

My two youngest sons are TT and my 8 yr old has had some speech problems that are possible TT related, but we chose not to clip because it never interfered with latch and my oldest who is NOT TT has speech problems, so I don't necessarily believe that TT is 100% to blame for MDs speech problems.

[momileigh]

I was just at a birth where the baby was born VERY tongue-tied. I had never seen a tied tongue and it was just so tight I couldn't believe it. The midwife just took some scissors and snipped it right then and there (within an hour of birth). She had a cotton ball ready in case there was a little blood, but there wasn't so much as a single drop of blood. Furthermore, the baby did not seem hurt even a tiny bit... he was mad that we held his mouth open, but when she snipped there was just no sign of distress at all! He was happily nursing shortly thereafter. Very interesting! I have to wonder if waiting would just make it worse.