"Rachel Myr" <[log in to unmask]>

# a 6 week old baby today whose mother has cracks on both sides, in 
the fold between nipple and areola, I discovered that his labial 
frenum is prominent, and fastened at the gum line and nearly at his 
lip edge. /---/ Can anyone with experience with this please share, 
treatment and results, and possibly criteria for treatment? #


There's some information in Bf Atlas, if you have that at hand.

Poor mom, the cracks you described sound painful. My experience is 
only personal as my younger son had this. I didn't have cracked 
nipples because of that, but his latch was never good (shallow), it 
was always somewhat uncomfortable. I had blocked ducts weekly. He used 
to nurse ab. 5 min at a time, but very frequently.

I tried to find a person who would clip it, but with no luck. Believe 
me, I really tried, discussed in detail, showed pages of bf atlas, 
etc. It wasn't listed as an 'illness', so they considered him a 
healthy little boy, and said there's no reason to have an operation on 
a normal, healthy child. They said besides he'd need a general 
anaesthesia for that kind of operation, and they wouldn't do it. And, 
there's always the bottle to feed him with, you know all this... 
Though, they would clip the frenum later, if he grew a gap between his 
teeth. Eeh, who cares about bfing, but a gap between upper front teeth 
is a reason to clip it.

He wouldn't flange his upper lip out either, and had sucking blisters 
on his upper lip for his entire first year - until he fell over and 
the labial frenum was partly torn. They told me his labial frenum 
would bleed a lot because it is so thick, and that's why they couldn't 
simply snip it like a tongue-tie. Well, when he fell over, there was 
only a couple of drops of blood.

After the frenum was torn, bfing became instantly more comfortable, 
and I got rid off those weekly blocked ducts.

Someone suggested the labial frenum could be 'clipped' by a laser 
(without general anaesthesia) but that kind of service is not 
available where I live.

A mom whose baby was as old as my younger one, told her baby's tight 
upper frenum was torn when he ate a banana, there was blood all over. 
This other baby wouldn't latch at all, and he was bottle fed with ebm 
for quite a while, he had huge sucking blisters, too.

It can be quite frustrating to know a cure and yet finding nobody to 
do it.

I sincerely hope your mom will find help :) .

Sanna-Mari
bf support group leader
Finland, Scandinavia

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