Humped tongues are indeed a problem and need to be ferreted out carefully.
The most obvious cause of tongue-humping is tongue-tie, wherein baby simply
cannot stretch the tongue out completely for full stripping action,
resulting in posterior bunching. Babies may also hump as a protective
mechanism if for some reason their airway feels threatened, and some do it
for no apparent reason.

It is important to try and determine the reasons for baby doing this, if
any. Beyond that, I strongly favor finger-feeding to help train the tongue
down-- baby can chomp and manipulate a rubber nipple, but he cannot
manipulate a finger; he must learn to work around it.

Barbara W-C and Catherine Genna are the queens of this topic and have
written on it in the past on lactnet; check out the archives.

Lisa Marasco, MA IBCLC

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