Tongue Tied October 15, 2008

When I was pregnant with Magdalena, I practically devoured every breastfeeding book or article there was out there.  Friends like Beanmom and Rachel pointed me to terrific books.  I felt solidly prepared for the journey we were about to start.

And then Magdalena was born.  It was a really long labor followed by a csection.  Erich did everything I asked, and stayed by her side the entire time they did their assessments.  When they got me back to the room, I was anxious to see her, hold her, but most importantly, I was anxious to nurse her. After asking about when she would be done, a nurse casually mentioned that she appeared to be tongue tied.

Tongue tied? It seemed like such a curve ball to be thrown.  Erich wasn’t tongue tied, and I wasn’t either.  And all the literature said that tongue ties were usually hereditary, so where did this come from?  12 hours after her birth, I asked if they would clip her tongue.  I was lucky that there was no hesitation and the pediatrician immediately clipped her tongue in the hospital.

Our walk down breastfeeding lane started as a rocky one.  By the time they clipped her tongue, I was already sore.  Then she was super sleepy on day 2, as most newborns are, and she seemed to not know what to do with her newly clipped tongue.  By the time I left the hospital I was bleeding and blistered and using a nipple shield. But I was determined! Some might say I was stubborn.  And after a couple of weeks, Magdalena and I fell into a routine and breastfeeding became that wonderful journey that so many talk about.

When Carmina was born, it was the first thing on my mind.  Was she tongue tied?  And while she was a lazy nurser, she was not tongue tied, and breastfeeding was a smooth journey.

With Kevin, I never really thought about him being tongue tied.  With all the drama surrounding his birth, then his respiratory difficulties, it was honestly the last thing on my mind.  The few times I could really look inside his mouth when he was crying in that first week, I saw what I thought was a tongue tie. When he was 7 days old, he came off of all respiratory support and I was allowed to nurse him for the first time.

Kevin was born to breastfeed! He was a champion nurser right from the start, an impressive preemie with a great suck.  He seemed to do okay with his tongue tie, but he had his moments.  I asked the NICU nurse if someone would be available to clip his tongue before we left, but I was told it was unusual to clip tongues in the NICU.  Everyone seemed confident that it would stretch and he was doing well- gaining weight.

But he did have some issues latching.  This time though, with two other breastfed children under my belt, I was able to help him latch better and change up positions.  But he still seemed to have a shallow latch at times and sometimes had issues fully extending his tongue under the nipple.  I asked our dentist if he would clip his tongue, and he agreed!  So on Tuesday we had his tongue clipped.

Before:

And after:

The procedure was simple and I assume painless because he did not cry at all. Best thing of all, about half an hour later I nursed him and found him to have a perfect latch.  Clipping his tongue was an instantaneous fix to his latch issues!