Two stories of tongue tie - Leah’s story

Posted on November 20, 2008
Filed under: Latch problems, Nipple pain, Tounge tie

My daughter Audrey was born in 2003. I researched a lot about breastfeeding and was excited about feeding my baby. We had had a pretty woeful birth experience, and unfortunately the unpleasant times continued in hospital for us post partum. We ended up staying 8 days, during which time she had IV antibiotics, and I developed an infection as well. But what I recall with the most sadness is the difficulties we faced from the staff over breastfeeding, on top of our physical challenges.

Audrey didn’t latch well, and it took a long time for my milk to come in, maybe 5 or 6 days. I was happy to demand feed, I knew it was optimal. And I knew what a good latch was meant to look like, and only very rarely did we get anything resembling one. I was always being asked when and how long she’d fed, in a clockless room, on strong pain relief, which complicated my reporting of popping her on and off the boob on cue. So more stress for not being compliant.

The night nurses were relentless in badgering me to “top her up”, tsk tsk’ing over how “dry” she was, telling me the urates in her nappy was because she was dehydrated. On the back of everything we’d experienced, with a brand new baby, the stress of this was unbelievable. Eventually I told them if they wanted me to supplement I’d only do it after speaking to a paediatrician. ”Oh you don’t have to ask a doctor, we can just give it to her!” the nurse exclaimed. I think they worked undercover for formula manufacturers, missing my point that I wasn’t giving it to her without a clear and present danger of something horrible happening without it.

Thankfully the paediatrician confirmed she wasn’t dehydrated and told me “I hate formula” which made me feel I’d finally found someone who had cracked open a book on infant feeding in the last 30 years! I had a visit from a lactation consultant, and to be perfectly honest I can’t recall the substance of that visit, whether we discussed the possibility of tongue tie or not, but I think not, as no plans past visiting the breastfeeding clinic on discharge were made. My nipples were quite damaged at this point.

We eventually got discharged, with extra domiciliary visits to monitor her weight as she’d lost 420grams from her 4000 gram birth weight, and had only stabilised the loss over 2 days before we left. The first domiciliary nurse we met, when she was 9 days old, confirmed she had tongue tie and referred us to a GP to have it assessed and snipped. We attended the breastfeeding clinic the next day, where I felt more and more the problem was Audrey’s tongue, not me being too damn dense to get the lesson of how to latch a newborn on. On her 12th day, we attended the GP to have her tongue tie looked at.

From what I can gather, snipping tight frenulums had been out of favour for awhile. I knew about it from one of the books I’d read, which I believe now was a copy of Babies, Breastfeeding and Bonding by Ina May Gaskin, which I’d borrowed from my library. I knew it could save a breastfeeding relationship. Most other sources I found were far more conservative about snipping them, although nearly all reported it was a very mild procedure.

Unfortunately for us, it wasn’t like that for Audrey. She screamed and bled a lot and was obviously in distress for many hours after the snip. I believe her frenulum was quite thick and short. I’ve felt bad for years since that I took other people’s word that it wouldn’t hurt - I felt it was the same lie they tell about circumcision. Both my partner and I remember it with a pretty heavy heart. However, she was able to latch on, still crying, to my breast immediately, and for the first time we had an awesome, easily achieved latch! We attended the breastfeeding clinic again two days later, where I got some more advice about latch, but really the greatest thing was finally having something nice said to me … the lactation consultant there told me Audrey was a very lucky baby as I left her on to dream feed. So nice to finally get some kudos for doing what I felt was right, and not constant worry and criticism on top of my own concerns.

It took my nipples a few weeks to recover. Audrey was never a great weight gainer on breastmilk alone. In retrospect, my breasts changed minimally in her pregnancy compared to my next, and I think the physical difficulties plus 12 days of nipple feeding meant I never established a very plentiful supply. However, I was a faithful demand feeder, and she fed a LOT! She exclusively breastfed for 6 months, and we ended our breastfeeding relationship shortly after her 5th birthday. Breastfeeding Audrey has been something beautiful in life I am very grateful for. Apart from some marathon feeds that taught me the meaning of patience, we had a dream run, it was always the easiest part of mothering her.

Owen was born last month. I had learnt in the meantime that a lack of Vitamin A could be implicated in tongue tie, so was hoping my conception regime would mean we dodged that bullet. But I knew pretty soon after his birth he had a tongue tie, he had the classic heart shaped tongue when he poked it out. Whereas Audrey couldn’t poke hers out at all, his was longer and more stretchy.

We’d planned a homebirth but because of complications we were in hospital. Despite it being a world away from our first experience, I told noone about his tongue tie, wanting to blow that joint and deal with it later as he was latching reasonably well and causing no nipple damage. My milk was in quite early and the nurses didn’t care so much we fed a lot, I’d just make up a last time he fed time for them that looked good! There was many spooky similarities between their births, but with a twist - like this time the nurse was changing his nappy for me while I hobbled to the loo. She asked me to come look in his nappy and showed me the urates. ”Here we go again!” I thought, but then she proceeded to explain they are normal and she didn’t want me to worry and think it was blood. I bet it is something she has told a thousand mothers, but she will never know how that little bit of kindness and concern for us helped undo a bit of the manipulation and lack of care of how I felt the time before, when I felt they were gagging to get formula down my baby’s throat!

When the baby doctor was checking him for discharge, she discovered his tongue tie. She was already going the extra mile to get us out of there that day (he too had had iv antibiotics and she’d been great about chasing up test results and ending treatment early, and wasn’t worried about his almost 10% weight loss) and I was really not happy to have his tongue tie hold us up! Things move slowly in hospitals in my experience. She had a lactation consultant come and assess him, and it was found he easily qualified for a snip based on the criteria. She reiterated to me what I knew from 5 years ago, that we might get by on hormonal supply for 6 weeks and find we run into supply problems and a difficult to correct latch, even if my nipples were now pliant and tough enough to cope! And that we still would have the long term risks of caries and speech impediments. With a lot of anxiety an hour later I accompanied him down to the treatment room with the LC and baby doctor, promising him this was the last awful thing that would happen and we were going home. I told them Audrey’s snip had been horrific and they tried to assure me that was extremely unusual. They sat me on a chair, and had him on the treatment table. He complained with a little squawk as she opened his mouth with her fingers, and I looked away. Then they seemed to just sit him up, told me it was done and he was just looking around. He wasn’t bleeding. He was completely unfazed! Meanwhile I had begun to shake, as I had expected to be focusing on and feeding a screaming hurt baby - I could keep myself together for my boy, but he didn’t need me to, and so now all my emotions bubbled over. The lactation consultant had to carry him back to our room, I was too flustered, telling her repeatedly how I wish my partner could have seen that and how different it was from Audrey’s.

In many ways, his being so minor like I was led the believe before hers, has relieved a lot of my guilt about her pain. I always felt it was the one thing that allowed us to breastfeed but couldn’t help feel bad about her suffering, and like I’d been a fool to believe it wouldn’t be bad.

3 and a bit weeks in, we’ve already had a dream run feeding, tongue tie didn’t even make a dent. He feeds very differently than his sister, she was way more committed, he mucks about a lot more and somehow thinks his little fists might give him some joy as he bats away my boob to try and latch on them instead! However, I hope we enjoy a long loving stint as a breastfeeding duo, and I am looking forward to the years ahead of us.

Filed under: Latch problems, Nipple pain, Tounge tie