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Tongue. Tie
Hi all,
My baby has slight tongue tie, which took us till he was 55 hours old to realize, up until this point we just couldn't get him to latch onto the breast and were expressing by syringe and he was only just getting enough. The hospital policy for reluctant to breastfeed babies was about to kick in when I finally noticed it when he was crying, so they gave me a few more hours. Though he did end up with 10ml of formula top up given by syringe as he was getting dehydrated, and this did help clear the mucous from delivery from his stomach and gave him some energy to keep on going, as he was a very lethargic baby up until this point. Luckily I was having no issues hand expressing into a syringe with hubby and the midwives help so was able to make sure I kept feeding him.
Anyway, baby is now feeding with the help of nipple shields, not ideal, cos they're a faff and baby's latch isn't great, he won't open his mouth very wide and literally only sucks on the nipple, not the areola. Pllus he is taking in wind with them and he is very reluctant to part with it! Plus he likes to toss his head around which messes with the shield placement and causes him to get frustrated.
He has started to open his mouth a little wider and tonight was the first time that vie seen ins cheeks properly work, like get dimples in them when sucking, or is that a bad thing, I can't remember.
Anyway, we have been reffered to a plastic surgeon consultant in Newcastle to correct the tongue tie, has anyone else had the procedure done and how was lo's reaction to it. Did it help with the feeding?
Hope so, cos I want to get rid of the shields and he can't suck without them, I keep trying it..
Any advice or experiences are appreciated
Cylie and andrew
Only just four days old
My baby has slight tongue tie, which took us till he was 55 hours old to realize, up until this point we just couldn't get him to latch onto the breast and were expressing by syringe and he was only just getting enough. The hospital policy for reluctant to breastfeed babies was about to kick in when I finally noticed it when he was crying, so they gave me a few more hours. Though he did end up with 10ml of formula top up given by syringe as he was getting dehydrated, and this did help clear the mucous from delivery from his stomach and gave him some energy to keep on going, as he was a very lethargic baby up until this point. Luckily I was having no issues hand expressing into a syringe with hubby and the midwives help so was able to make sure I kept feeding him.
Anyway, baby is now feeding with the help of nipple shields, not ideal, cos they're a faff and baby's latch isn't great, he won't open his mouth very wide and literally only sucks on the nipple, not the areola. Pllus he is taking in wind with them and he is very reluctant to part with it! Plus he likes to toss his head around which messes with the shield placement and causes him to get frustrated.
He has started to open his mouth a little wider and tonight was the first time that vie seen ins cheeks properly work, like get dimples in them when sucking, or is that a bad thing, I can't remember.
Anyway, we have been reffered to a plastic surgeon consultant in Newcastle to correct the tongue tie, has anyone else had the procedure done and how was lo's reaction to it. Did it help with the feeding?
Hope so, cos I want to get rid of the shields and he can't suck without them, I keep trying it..
Any advice or experiences are appreciated
Cylie and andrew
Only just four days old
0
Replies
I hope you get seen soon hun. My little man was not diagnosed with a tongue tie until he was 6 weeks old despite being readmitted to hospital at 10 days old due to large weight loss and constant feeding. I also had mastitis during this time, horrendously cracked and bleeding nipples and still noone noticed (I had no idea at the time what a tongue tie was!)
I ended up getting his snipped privately as I was in so much pain and I really wanted to maintain breastfeeding. The change was brilliant, it took him a while to learn how to latch properly and to break the bad habits he had picked up during the 6weeks he'd struggled to feed for.
Anyway, it was the best decision I made having it sorted and we stopped breastfeeding a 6 weeks ago and 13 months as he self-weaned.
Fingers crossed you get it sorted asap.
Jo x
Thankfully, my mum is a nurse and she has a health-visitor friend who is mad on breastfeeding. She told us we should go to a breastfeeding clinic and show them and they could get something done about it. Oh yeah, at the hospital a midwife told us if we were worried then we could get referred to Bedford by the health visitors. However, the funding has actually been cut and health visitors aren't actually allowed to refer now.
So I put off going to the breastfeeding clinic for a while for various reasons. Then, I got mastitis twice and also was in so much pain when feeding and ended up with ulcers on my nipples which have now scarred. I turned up at the clinic and they were all furious at the hospital for not getting it sorted for me and they said that his tongue tie was quite bad. They showed me how to use nipple shields and told me to go to the docs and insist on getting referred.
So I went to docs and no problem with being referred and received my appointment very quickly.
Ok so this is what happened at the hospital...
The doc chatted to us first, he does a little questionnaire to assess the problem before he looks at the tongue. He then had a look at it and said it was really bad and we should have come to him a lot earlier (not that we could have-im so glad my mums friend gave us the advice though). He agreed to cut it so I had to go and wait in a room behind a curtain whilst my MIL (to her shock) had to take him into the room and hold him whilst he had it done (so it's a good idea if there's two of you). He did cry and there was blood but they bought him straight into me to fee, which he did. I tell you what! I could barely tell he was feeding, there was such a difference! His tongue ulcerated and took a few days to heal but he has been fine since.
They give you a bit of paper at the end to show the extent of the tongue tie and other details and on ours it said that his tongue tie was 100% and thick which is the worst you can get. So obviously i'm annoyed that we were told it was mild but also sooo thanful that he has had it done and hopefully wont have any problems with food/speech in the future.
They do say you should get it done as soon as possible so I would get onto them right away if I were you. The longer you leave it the harder it is, and after 6 months it requires general anaesthetic!
Think i've covered it all, but let me know if there is anything else you want to know
PS I went on to bf ds for 6 months xx
my daughter had a 50% tongue tie which was snipped when she was 2 weeks old. Only took a few seconds and it didnt seem to bother her at all - I cried more than she did! We fed her straight away with the help of the feeding adviser and straight away her latch was better. The funniest thing was that she discovered that she could now stick her tonue out and kept doing it for days afterwards - had us in stitches!!
Try and get it fixed asap, I was told the longer it is left the more complicated it is to fix - aswell as being more painful for your lo. I was very impressed with my hospital they really took the time to answer our qestions and kept us fully informed - dont be afraid to ask them anything no matter how trivial you think it may be.
xx
by day 5 on the first weigh in after birth he had gone from 8lbs 0oz at birth down to 6lbs 13oz which is a 15% loss, so midwife had to phone the consulant paed at the hospital to discuss an 'action plan' to help with weight gain, thankfully because we had an explanation for the loss, it was decided we would just re-weigh in 2 days. in 2days he then proceeded to put on 3oz which was excellent!!!
we eventually ot our appointment date through for when he was 2weeks old. atg the appointment the surgeon looked in his mouth, agreed it was tongue tie, explained theprocedure then asked me to go sit in aother room whilst daddy held baby to get the snip. the procedure itself didnt bother him, but he really wasnt kieen on having his head held still and people poking in his mouth!!
the tiniest amount of blood was all we had
he came into me and after fighting for 20minutes in which time i got a little upset, he did manage to feed. then when we go him home, he fed again, and then all that day and night the feeds just got easier. the shields were eliminated immediately.
he stilll doesnt always open his mouth wide enough, and i generally have to squeeze m breast to get it in his mouth, but we are still happily feeding at 11weeks, and i fully intend to feed as long as i can, hopefully to a year and beyond!!!
cylie + andrew
11+0