Tongue Tied

At John’s four month check up the doctor noticed something off with his tongue. He asked me if his tongue was tied. I kinda thought it was a joke, because John had just started to be more vocal and I was thinking, “Tongue tied? No way, this kid talks all the time!”

The doctor started to examine his mouth and began asking questions about nursing. Sadly, I decided to quit at one month because it was just too stressful. The doctor said that sometimes it can affect feeding, but since he was eating well and gaining plenty of weight he wasn’t too concerned. The problem is that there is too much connective tissue under the tongue and that it can hinder feeding and speech development.

I went home and immediately began to do some research about tied tongues because I was curious. One of the things that can happen is that babies “chew” instead of suck because their tongue isn’t free to move like normal. The nipple will become “squished” if this happens. It happened a lot to us and when I mentioned it to my lactation consultant she said if it wasn’t hurting then I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I think I was getting enough of the areola in his mouth so for the classic latching problems she sees I wasn't doing anything wrong. But, it always bugged me that that happened often... I just didn't feel like it was right, and I still have a feeling that it was because of his tongue.

The problem is very fixable so it kinda bugs me that we didn’t know and therefore try to fix it to see if it would increase my supply problems. The theory goes that if the baby can’t move his tongue freely then he can’t empty the breast properly… causing supply problems.

Our doctor referred us to a specialist that performs the surgery and he said that John has only a slightly tight tongue… with just a thin portion attaching the tongue down. He said that we could wait or we could get it done now, but he would most likely have to have it done at some point. Steven had his done when he was in grade school because of speech problems, so we elected to just get it done now before he starts speaking.

When talking with the specialist I tried to pick his brain about possible nursing issues while explaining our situation. He said he has performed several of these surgeries and just rare few affected nursing/eating. That was kinda discouraging because it means that my problems were probably caused by the PCOS. What’s bad about that is that I have no solution to fix problems caused by PCOS… so my odds of successfully nursing any child are low.

My hope is to nurse at least one child exclusively, but as soon as the doctor said that it most likely wasn’t his tongue, I had a feeling that that dream would never happen. I will still try hard with each of my kids to nurse them because breast milk is the best thing for them and it’s free and it reduces my risk for breast cancer … so it’s a good thing to strive for… even if it doesn’t happen very easily for me.

With all of the following kids we have (except adopted children) I will have their tongues check and clipped at any sign of reasonable doubt. The specialist said that that was a good idea and that he has done most at the hospital before the baby comes home. It’s not a risky surgery and it’s worth it for me to have the peace of mind and rule out any potential problems.

Now for this kid, he’s scheduled for his Frenulectomy next week. It’s a simple surgery that will take about five minutes to perform, so we will only be at the hospital for a couple of hours. It will be interesting to see how it affects eating, especially for that day. Everything I’ve read says they can almost immediately nurse/bottle feed/use a pacifier so I think it will be fine.

I noticed in our Chicago pictures that his tongue looked a little funny. I don’t think he can stick his tongue out like normal babies. I think this is what happens when he tries.

And I also tried to get a video of it before the surgery. The first two minutes are just video of John being cute... I think he's so adorable in the walker. I love the way he tries to stand on his tip toes like he's going to give a big speech. Love this kid!!!



I think from the video it looks pretty normal. I also think I’m a little paranoid about it and that I’ve only had one kid so I have no idea what “normal” is.

I’ll try to take some comparative pictures/videos but it’s not a top priority so don’t hold your breath. I mainly wanted to keep everyone updated with what’s going on with John and why I get so sad when I discussing nursing.