Hi Ann,
Thanks for posting a positive story about tongue tie.

I have my own story about tongue tie.
My first two boys were tongue tied. Two different nurses commented on  
it when my first child was a newborn
but neither must have known it had an implications for nursing. (It  
was 18 years ago)

With my first child I had rather flat nipples and he had to work very  
hard for his milk. He was very jaundiced.
I had scabbed nipples for 6 weeks and he never spent less that 45  
minutes at the breast. I only nursed him 9 months.
He must have stretched his frenulum out with all that work because he  
never has had any speech or other issues.

My second son was also tongue tied and less jaundiced and had an  
easier time nursing getting his milk more quickly than the first baby  
ever did.
Scabby nipples for only three weeks this time. During his first week  
of life a La Leche League leader told me he was tongue-tied, and I  
looked for a medical provider willing to clip it but my nipples  
healed before I found one so I never had it clipped. When he was four  
years old I took him to a speech therapist who said yes
his speech difficulties were due to tongue-tie but wait a year and if  
the problem didn't correct itself get the frenulum clipped.

The speech issues resolved so I didn't get it clipped but about the  
time the speech improved this child who had been dry through the  
night for three years started to wet the bed. The pediatrician  
prescribed DDAVP which we never used except when he got older and  
wanted to spend the night at a friend's house.
The bed wetting was accompanied by a sleep walking type behavior, or  
I should say his father and I never had any success with trying to  
get him to get up in the night to go to the bathroom...he simply  
could not be roused...

The bed wetting resolved after about five years...fast-forward the  
child has a beautiful dental arch but still an open bite...why? Large  
tongue. Why is the tongue so large?
It has to work so hard because it is tied to the floor of his mouth.

So now 15 years after the fact I have finally connected all the dots  
thanks to David Palmer's presentation on the ILCA website. My child  
has sleep apnea from a large tongue caused by tongue tie. So even if  
tongue tie is not causing insurmountable breastfeeding problems there  
are good reasons to clip a short or tight frenulum in infancy and  
early childhood.

Warmly,
Jen O'Quinn

On Nov 10, 2007, at 8:31 AM, Ann Calandro wrote:

> Many of us who have been around for a while have unhappy tongue tie  
> stories
> in our history. I have dealt with many physicians (and still work  
> with many)
> who do not believe tongue tie is a problem. I have been yelled at,  
> reported,
> laughed at and in general treated poorly when I educate a mom about  
> tongue
> tie if her physician has other ideas. I have known people who have  
> been fired
> from their hospital position because they told a mother that her  
> baby was
> tongue tied. Tongue tie runs in my family, and my fourth child was  
> tongue
> tied, so I have family history of this as well. My brother was  
> tongue tied, and
> on the delivery table, the physician pulled a pair of scissors out  
> of his pocket,
> and clipped it without even saying a word to my mom. She was  
> horrified and
> he just said, "well, he's breastfeeding so this needs to be done."  
> No sterilized
> scissor, no permission slip.... No big deal.
>
> Anyhow, I have just returned from Maine, where my daughter had her  
> second
> baby by repeat c/section at York Hospital in York Maine. I was at  
> home with
> her 2 year old. She called me when baby Wyatt was born to tell me  
> all was
> well. She said "the nurse says he is tongue tied, and wonders if we  
> want it
> clipped." I was surprised to say the least. The nurse had noticed  
> it. The nurse
> had suggested it be clipped.
> My daughter said his nursing felt "softer" than her two year old.  
> He nursed
> frequently despite his jaundice,and was back to his birth weight by  
> one week
> of age. At the one week check up, she told her pediatrician that he  
> was tiring
> out after a few minutes of nursing and was unable to sustain his  
> latch for long.
> She was not in pain, he was wetting and stooling well, and he was  
> gaining
> weight. The pediatrician said that if my daughter felt he was  
> having latch
> problems, she would go ahead and clip it. And she did. And that was  
> that. I
> can't tell you how happy I was that her pediatrician recognized  
> that tongue tie
> was a problem, she did not have to fight to get it clipped, or go  
> searching for
> someone who would do it, and it was in general no big deal. Once  
> again. There
> is hope!
> Ann Calandro, BSN, RNC, IBCLC
> North Carolina
>
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