Wouldn't it be great if we could just take care of this problem ourselves?
But...This area of the mouth has some pretty important sturctures in it. I
would require training and mentored experience before I would feel confortable
doing it myself. We would have to have some way to be sure training was
sufficient and a minimum standard upheld for competency. And then we have the
problem with educational standards and the ability to do this legally. One of
the things we could think about is planning to include this in our scope of
practice. We would have to actively lobby for this to the powers that be. I'm
afraid we are stuck with the status quo for now but the future could look very
different if we wanted it to.

Alison K. Hazelbaker,MA, IBCLC