Prosterior Tongue Tie

Our son had (and does) have a tongue tie (not sure if it's a posterior type). His has proven to not cause any problems with breast or bottle feeding and is only just starting to talk (which seems fine at the moment) so we'll have to wait a bit to see if it effects his speech. I have one also which has never been treated and has never caused me any problems.

They routienly offer to cut them in the ACT if they are interfering with feeding. Would you be willing to wait and see how he goes? How old is he? Is he gaining weight well? I've known others who's babies were having trouble with feeding, but given a little bit of time, adjusted their method and had no further problems and didn't require the procedure.

Hey smile we went through this when DS was born - in Wellington as well.
We were at Wellington Hospital and they gave us the choice, didn't push us either way. Just let us know our options when it became apparent it was an issue. The reason why we went ahead and had it cut was because it was interferring with breast feeding and causing a lot of damage.
Apparently if you choose to not cut then you face potential problems with speech, and eating solids later on. Another thing I'm thinking is dental problems but I'm not 100% sure on that one.

But anyway, the Lactation consultant did it with scissors when DS was about 5 days old. We were still in-patients then. It didn't cost anything.
If you get it early enough it actually doesn't hurt the baby because nerve endings aren't in that area yet. It didn't bleed at all when we had DS's done.
If your baby is a little bit older then they can do it with just a little local anaesthetic.
So If it were me in the same position again I wouldn't hesitate to get it done with scissors... It really is not a serious procedure, it took less than one minute. DS didn't even cry, and fed normally straight away afterward. It was pretty obvious he wasn't phased.
But in saying that I don't know how old your bub is so you might have a different set of circumstances smile

The lactation consultant who did it was totally awesome, I can't recommend her enough. If you would like her name PM me and I will let you know smile

hey ladies thanks for your reply. He has the posterior tongue tie not the one in the middle. beach mummy just wondering if yours was the one of the side (posterior) or the dangly bit in the middle under the tongue.

DS is 6.5 weeks ive heard cutting the prosterior ones bleed but if you laser them they dont and no one at either wellington or hutt hospital will do these. The pediatirican didnt even know what i was talking about.

LE and Little E, he is growing not to bad was a iugr baby so little 5lp 7oz but is putting weight on. His feeding isnt great and he cant seem to hold a dummy very well, I have also taken him the cranial osteo and she said there was alot of tension around this jaw, he also has a high pallet so im assuming its all connected.

It was posterior. Right side. I hadn't heard of laser treatment either so didn't consider it. Your little man is older than mine was so I don't know he might bleed a little bit but wont be in any pain the LC will make sure of that. They will be able to tell you exactly what to expect from the procedure if you have a consult.

What I was told is the longer you leave it the more complicated the procedure would become if you decide to have it done further down the track.
However you can just leave it indefinately and he there is a chance he may never need any treatment at all, I mean if he is gaining weight as he should be then thats a good thing.
Some children with tongue tie don't experience any problems at all.
So for us we reasoned that it was a small painless procedure now or the potential of a bigger potentially more painful one later so we went with the first option.

But, hey - thats what I did but you're his mum and you know best what he needs so go with your gut on this one I would say smile

Hi, I know this thread is a bit old but anyway, my miss had a TT, but it was a middle one. We got it snipped because it was causing significant breastfeeding issues. The doc said to me it was a good decision, he said even if I'd put her on the bottle and left it, we'd probably have issues down the track with solids, speech or dental. So my attitude to it is that you may as well get it sorted when they are babies and the procedure is not as traumatic (in our case, there was one drop of blood and about 10 seconds of crying followed by the best breastfeed of her life). That way, it's dealt with and you will never have to worry in the future about it smile

hi, i have two boys, with tongue tie, one was done at 5 days old as it needed to be done due to feeding issues, the other boy i waited till he was 2 years, as his was not nowere as bad, I wish i had it done sooner, his speech and eating is much better. good luck on your journey of parent hood as you are the best one to decide on whats best for your family.

hearingimparedmamatobe I will pm you smile

and congrats!!!!!

Hi ladies,

we saw cheryl http://www.naturalbreastfeeding.co.nz/about-che...

Hut hospital are starting to do the odd one, Wayne Gillingham http://www.welloral.co.nz/ does them privately aswell in wellington, he is a oral and facial surgeon, he is going out to hutt hospital once a week in the morning to treat tongue ties both kinds. Wayne was around $170 privately to do the prosterior, middle one might be cheaper dont know. The other place to go is naenae dental clinic, you need to go through cheryl if you want to use them so you have her costs aswell but the difference is its lasered instead of cut, they the only ones i could find that do the lasering. bleeds less and less likely to heal back up again as there is no open cut.

Im told the procedure is to ask the hosptial lactation consultant to refer you for the waiting list and then you will normally be refered to the dental area. I was told as we are not breast feeding we would not likely get on the hospital waiting list but if you are breast feeding then no probs. The middle one is alot easier, bleeds less and quicker to do some of the midwifes around wellington do it themselves as well.

The midwife may mean for you to contact the hospital lactation consultant, anne-marie and milly are at hutt hospital 04 587 2556 not sure who they are at wellington hospital.

We havent had it done yet and not sure too, we had it all booked in and had to cancel as baby ended up in childrens ward for 4 days with a urinary tract infection and on iv antibiotics and iut was over the period it was meant to be done.

As we were in hospital i took the opportunity to ask them, this info is soley on the prosterior tongue ties not the ones at the front but i was told that the midwifes and lactation consult are supporting it trying to get it down and the pediatricians are not, some didnt even know what i was talking about.

There is not enough evidence for them to make judgement on it and they dont know what is going to happen with the children who are having it done when they are older as the children having had it done have not grown up yet.

So basically the doctros were like no and the lactation conult was like yes. So I asked to be refered to the speech laungage therapist at the hospital to check there wasnt another reason baby was spilling his milk out the side and in pain while feeding and thats all good she just thinks the newborn teats are to fast for him, she said that his tongue doesnt curl as much sideways (which i wonder if this would be fixed with the tongue tie being done)

She said his tongue moves fine for speech and she cant see any problems that would interefer with his development so at the moment we are just holding fire as there has been way to much else going on in and out of hospit and at doctors since he was born, we havnet had one week where weve not be at hospt or doc.

If when he starts solids there is any problems then I know what might be the cause and can get onto it.


Good luck i have found it a very stressful situation not being able to get clear facts and evidence.

cool you just need to follow me then I can send you a message smile

Ah tongue ties. DS1 had a very severe one which went undiagnosed until he was 4 months of age. It made those first few months so stressful for us an he just had the regular (middle) kind. Our problems started from his failure to gain weight. We had weekly weigh ins and even two appointments with a lactation consultant but no one picked it up. When I first heard about tongue ties and was suspicious this is what DS1 had I was even told by the child health nurses I was seeing that this couldn't be the problem because they would have checked for this at the first appointment. Straight after that conversation I took DS to the GP and low and behold the tongue tie was so tight he could barley get his finger underneath (though the following week when we went back to the Child Health Nurse and told her of the diagnosis she had a feel and said, "Oh yeah, he does have a slight one".

We were referred to a private paediatric surgeon and despite all the conflicting information we had read previous to our appointment she actually highly recommended having it cut. She did say it isn't always necessary, but said because DS's was so tight and because we'd already experienced significnt problems because of it (couldn't breastfeed and actually chewed formula out of a bottled because he found sucking i too difficult), that we would more then likely experience future issues including ongoing feeding issues, speech impairments (he couldn't stick his tongue out of his mouth at all there was very restricted movement) and dental/orthadontic issues. She also touch on the social issue of it and the possibility of being teased about it.

Unfortunately for us, because it had been left undiagnosed for so long he was to old to just have the simple scissors snip. With the normal tongue ties they can apparently just cut them with scissors if they are under four months of age. After that blood vessels/veins start to grow in them and as such DS required laser surgery to have his done. We ended up having it done when he was six months of age and he had to be put under a general anesthetic. That made the choice a little more difficult, but in the end we went ahead with it and haven't regretted it for a second.

DS2 and DS3 also had tongue ties but luckily neither was quite as severe. DS2 still had some problems breast feeding so we had it cut at two weeks, was done by a quick snip and the paediatric surgeon had him back to me before I even managed to sit down in the waiting room. DS3 also has one but it hasn't cause any issues to date so we haven't had anything done (though after reading one of the earlier posts I'm now slightly concerned that we may have made the wrong choice on that one...hope nothing comes of it).

After all we went through, it frustrates the hell out of me that the majority of information out there about tongue ties significantly down plays the symptoms and issues it can cause. Especially because since all my friends and family know how much of an issue it was for us, we have now become the referral point for them and any people they know who have had babies with tongue ties. I've now heard so many stories of experiences similar to ours with the general theme of frustration being that no one wants to believe them that it's causing so much trouble.....and that's without ever having eard about posterior tongue ties! I really feel for you and hope you and bub are able to get the issue sorted out. What I learnt from my experience is to go with your gut, if you feel it's the cause of the problems then keep pushing the issue.

Hi there

I believe it is entirely up to you whether or not to get it done. Being tongue-tie basically means your child has a short tongue and therefore the whole speech problems means your child becoming lisp.

I am a lisp myself and have had difficulties with pronunciation of numerous words growing up however I am a fluent and confident speaker today and can pretty much pronounce difficult words.

My daughter now 5months was also tongue-tie however I got hers snipped and it was a couple of seconds the whole snip and she slept right through it. I only chose to do the whole snipping because I do know the difficulties of speaking in school.

The whole procedure too, only cost me $40 as was signed up with a service called B4Baby in Mangere, Auckland.

Sorry have kinda realized I have gone off track on the whole subject. Just speaking from experience.
Hope some of my experiences does help and where you would like answers, do not hesitate to ask.
Cheers
Liz grin