The frenulum issue is a never ending battle.  We have a pediatrician for
whom it's the real "F" word - don't say it around him...

We've certainly seen it impact BF and have seen great improvement with
clipping.  We always encourage the mother to let her physician know how much
it helped to have it clipped.  They have to hear it from their patients.

With this anti-frenulum physician, we had a patient some time ago whose baby
just couldn't transfer milk at the breast.  She pumped and tried to bottle
for awhile but gave up.  Chose not to have switch to another physician or to
have the pedi dentist clip it.  Was concerned her doctor would get mad.
Switched to formula.  At about 2 months of age, baby was admitted to the
Peds unit for failure to thrive.  A huge neurological work-up was ordered.
On Saturday, the pediatrician's partner was rounding.  The mom mentioned
that when she had the baby, the LC mentioned that the frenulum might be a
problem for breastfeeding, and that she had feeding difficulties and
eventually quit BF.  He took a peek, clipped the frenulum right there.  The
baby gulped down it's bottle.  He cancelled the whole neuro work-up and sent
them home the next day as baby demonstrated the ability to feed well.

So, we stress that it's function and not just appearance.  The tongue can
impact feeding for both breast and bottle, although we seldom see it a
factor in the bottle baby.

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