Thursday, 14 March 2013

Tongue tie



At work it seemed that every baby with a not-so-perfect latch or feeding technique was immediately labelled by midwives as having "tongue tie". As the number of affected babies seemed to rise exponentially every year we remained skeptical (dubious?!) -not that the condition existed, but that it was having such an impact on feeding.

Well, let me just say... Tongue tie does exist and has a massive impact on feeding! 

After 6 weeks of agonisingly painful breastfeeding, 2 episodes of mastitis, 1 hospital admission and Doof's weight falling from the 50th centile to the 2nd... He had a frenulectomy

Oh wow. The difference - immediately pain free. A proper latch that he could maintain. And best of all - his weight has gone up to 25th centile. No longer a "famine baby" thankyouverymuch!*

At 17 weeks now I wonder if it is returning as recently his latch has started to slip again and feeding has once again become painful. Not agonising yet, but definitely different... 

We shall see...


 
*this refers to a comment a fellow healthcare professional made about Doof’s appearance during a routine check up when he was not gaining weight well. Rather harsh in my opinion – luckily I took it as a joke and did not worry too much. Said to the wrong person or to someone more insecure about their child’s weight… could have not gone down as well! 

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