According to a Canadian Statement: > Ankyloglossia is relatively uncommon in the newborn population. Most of the > time, it is an anatomical finding without significant consequences for the > newborn or infant affected by this condition. Current evidence seems to > demonstrate that despite ankyloglosssia, most newborns are able to breastfeed > successfully (7,10). 1. I wonder about the word "uncommon" - I think it depends on which population you are seeing. I had rarely seen a tongue tie in St. Louis, but saw almost one a week in Puerto Rico. These WERE causing breastfeeding problems, or they wouldn't have come to see me... 2. I also wonder about "most newborns are able to breastfeed" - again, I see tongue tie (though much less often) here in California, and find that most ARE able to breastfeed with minimal correction of placement - but this was NOT the case in Puerto Rico. I wonder if this has to do with the type of tissue the mother's breasts are? In listening to Peter Hartmann, he mentions the differences in breasts between Oriental and Caucasian women, and I have seen similar differences among women (not necessarily connected to race) and those who have breastfed successfully despite tongue-tie (I do not yet have a physician who will perform this surgery unless the patient is Kaiser) have had the very pliable (silly-putty?) type of breast. I saw LESS of this type of breast in Puerto Rico (again, not an adequate sampling, as I only saw the "troubles"). So here is ANOTHER study - in addition to the evaluation of the tongue (thank you Alison Hazelbaker) we need to add the breast tissue. In listening to Dr. Hartmann in Ohio - I got lots of good information - but then I commented to him that now I had more questions! He chuckled and said, "Yes, I guess that means we all have a job for a very LONG time!" So true! Jeanette Panchula, BSW, RN, PHN, IBCLC NEW E-mail: mailto:[log in to unmask] *********************************************** 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