Marsha,
About a month ago, a mother I worked with 16 mos previously called me about
her son. Originally they had breastfeeding problems and we got the
tongue-tie clipped pretty quickly. I even went with them and took pictures.
Though mom was not gushing over enthusiastically about the difference,
breastfeeding was better and baby went on to nurse for over a year. 

But it seems not all was well. Mom told me that once her son started solids
at 6 mos, he was frequently choking on his food. Further, he now still
cannot talk **at all** at age 16mos, though she says he tries very hard. He
is becoming increasingly frustrated with his inability to talk and say more
than a rough version of "mom," crying and whining and pointing a lot. 

I asked her to bring him back for me to see and promised to help expedite
whatever needed to happen. Mom told me, "I KNOW he's still tongue-tied
because he can't move his tongue much-- watch!"  Surely enough, she was
correct; that tongue was still anchored fairly seriously. But how could this
be if it had been clipped?  I took pictures of him now, and later at home
found my original one of the freshly cut frenulum.  Although a web had
indeed been snipped, when you put the two pictures side-by-side you can see
what wasn't cut-- what was apparently left that we all missed. It looks
exactly like the current tight structure. The original change was good
enough to improve breastfeeding but definitely not enough. Apparently
sometimes you can have more frenulum underneath once you've divided was is
obvious, but we didn't realize it at the time. 

This time I noticed that mom has a light lisp herself. Checked under her
tongue, and she has some frenulum restriction as well! Needless to say, I
personally phoned the pediatrician to get the referral, and thankfully he
just returned from a conference that discussed tongue-tie and was happy to
accommodate us.

By the way-- a couple of years ago I contacted a speech therapist at a local
elementary school to find out how often she saw problems related to
tongue-tie.  She told me "never."  I was shocked; this is not what I was
expecting to hear. So many times, like with the mom and baby above, I've
noticed mild speech lisps with a parent of the baby, or they can tell me
which family member "talks funny."  Yet NONE of these are being related to
tongue-tie?  We have a LOT of education to do with the speech folks as well,
who are in a position to identify those ties have been overlooked. 

~Lisa Marasco

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