Tallis Milburn posts on a mother with cracks about halfway around the base of both nipples, and a baby with some interesting variants of oral anatomy. In my experience this kind of crack is frequently associated with anatomical problems. If the tight labial frenulum is on the lip that is closest to the crack is on the nipple, I would try my hardest to get someone to clip it. I've seen it done just twice with instant relief to mother in both cases - and in a third case where the ENT doc expressed doubt to the mother that it would help, which led her to decline the procedure, there was no resolution, and the excruciatingly painful cracks which she had had for over a month and which were documentably not due to thrush or staph, remained. The first time I saw these was on the inferior aspect of both nipples in the mother of a baby with a very tight lower lip. He was tense for a lot of reasons, not the least of which was that he was undergoing physical therapy to stretch the tendons in both ankles, and this was so uncomfortable for him that the PT suggested doing it while he was feeding. The stretching was switched to bath time, while submerged in relaxing warm water, and he did start feeding with a more appropriately placed facial musculature. At the time I had never heard of tight frenula of any kind, but since it got better when his source of tension was eliminated, I don't think there was anything there. A tight frenulum will make it hard for the baby to flange the lip, and this does matter. I couldn't hazard a guess about the epiglottis, but if growth has been good for 8 weeks, maybe it doesn't matter at this point. It sounds like the baby chose the right mother - one with a good supply and lots of perseverance. Rachel Myr Kristiansand, Norway *********************************************** To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest) To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet All commands go to [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(R) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html