Well this is so very interesting - I just had to comment. I have been in practice for about a year and a half now though the woman I work with has been in private practice since certifying in 1985. She says she does see more TT these days. There are weeks when I think that I must be seeing things or inventing posterior ties - there are just so many babies with tongue ties (and non-latchers too). We can usually deal easily with type 1 &2 TT here. A few babies will make it out of hospital with classic ties but not many. We don't have many options for evaluation and clippling of posterior ties though so we educate when we can, send people to other cities sometimes and make do otherwise....... Esther asks about incidence of TT among our group. My collegue wonders when I am going to get my TT clipped - though I can't see why I would now - I don't snore, have no speech issues (other than a slight softening of my "s"s), my teeth are perfectly straight with all my "wisdom teeth" in place, no reflux issues, etc...I was not breastfed but that was not related to a TT - my mother just didn't "do that". I have just become more aware of the fact that I swallow "funny" - I choked at the dinner table nightly while drinking water as a kid - my parents went from exasperated to amused - they thought that I just was in to much of a hurry! At a recent gathering of LLLleaders a group of us were standing chatting as we were readying to leave and of the four of us, I have the above TT; one woman remembered having her tongue released by a dentist at about the age of 10 - she was shocked at the difference it made; another woman (an aspiring ICBLC - hi! I know you are out there) recently self-diagnosed her own TT after learning so much here on Lactnet and through her studies. She took a good look at her kids' tongues after looking back at her breastfeeding history and they are both TT - she went to the mirror to see what a "normal" frenulum looked like and was surprised to see her own tied tongue looking back at her! The 4th woman has a husband who is TT and her son was clipped as a baby due to problems with BF. So.. this may be a somewhat self-selected group - how many of us get into helping BF moms after overcoming challenges ourselves? it sure was interesting to see. Whenever I see a mom/baby with breastfeeding challenges and we investigate further into what is happening regarding baby's use of tongue I always ask about parent's history - who wore braces, who went to speech therapy, any incidence of TT in the family, who was breastfed - why and why not, etc.... though I know now that had my LC asked me I would never been able to connect the dots to my own BF challenges with my son. My son is the one who gave me difficulties with BF (has a slight TT) and he at 10 has beautiful straight teeth while my daughter, 8yrs tomorrow, (also TT) was a breeze to BF from the beginning but is going to need extensive orthodontic work - they both BF for ~3yrs, at least 1 yr tandem with no noticeable difference in the "feel" of the attachment. So there is my contribution to Esther's survey and I will add my agreement to the "canary in the coal mine theory" as well - there is something going on when we see this much of something. I am willing to bet the incidence is greater in those industrialized countries with both the means otherwise feed babies who would not have lived and pollution to cause the expression of the defect in the1st place. I saw that documentary Ingrid mentions - it is terrifying. Sorry for the length of this post - there have been so many great threads lately and have really been wanting to chime in - guess it all poured out here beth in Ottawa IBCLC and LLLL *********************************************** Archives: http://community.lsoft.com/archives/LACTNET.html To reach list owners: [log in to unmask] Mail all list management commands to: [log in to unmask] COMMANDS: 1. To temporarily stop your subscription write in the body of an email: set lactnet nomail 2. To start it again: set lactnet mail 3. To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet 4. To get a comprehensive list of rules and directions: get lactnet welcome