In the quest for references on tongue-tie issues, you might contact Dr.
Brian Palmer, a dentist and researcher in Kansas City, MO, who
specializes in how breastfeeding affects oral and dental development.
I've attended several of his continuing education sessions (he talks
fairly frequently at LLL conferences) including one on dealing with a
tight frenulum.  He's a dynamite speaker, with lots of gross/fascinating
slides of mouths and skulls.  Anyway, his contact information is listed
on:
http://www.pedschat.org/usa/missouri.htm

Also, it's infuriating that the pediatrician who refuses to clip a
frenulum for a breastfeeding problem is willing to clip the tongue at
age 2 or 3 if speech problems occur.  Language doesn't just suddenly
happen full-blown at that age -- language development starts almost from
birth -- after a certain point, a baby is "babbling" using only the
sounds that they hear in the language around them -- a trained linguist
can distinguish a French baby from a German baby by about 10 months.
And who's to say what kind of difficulty a baby might have during that
early trial-and-error with sound production if they don't have full,
easy use of their language "equipment."  (And the brain-building
qualities of breastmilk, and the close interaction fostered by
breastfeeding certainly would help those language abilities the
pediatrician is so concerned about.)

Margaret Wills
LLLL (and IBCLC hopeful)

             ***********************************************
The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html