tongue tied

Our poor Madison has a tongue tie. For anyone out there that doesn’t know what that means (like Fledra and I when we found out); a tongue tie is when the frenulum under the tongue attaches too far forward on the tongue preventing movement. In our case it was also causing Fledra discomfort during feedings. It can also lead to trouble with solid foods and speech impediments.

We discovered this during our follow-up appointment at the birthing center where the lactation specialist pointed it out. Following up on that, we had an oral surgeon who specializes in children and babies evaluate the scene and also discovered that she has a lip tie. This one is less of an immediate issue, but could cause her adult teeth to come in with a significant gap.

Given that there’s a whole host of potential issues associated with these conditions… and that it’s nearly impossible to discover that they’re an issue until it’s too late, we decided to have both the tongue and lip tie “released”. The Dr. used a laser to remove both… total time away from mom and dad was just about 8 minutes. Unfortunately for Madison, she’s too young to have any local anesthetic, so she had to go through it with just a bit of baby Tylenol and a cold cotton ball. Since the procedure we’ve seen almost no evidence that Madison was in any discomfort though.

We (Fledra) do have to massage both areas every 4 hours for 4 weeks to ensure that the frenulums don’t reattach. Again, all evidence suggests that this is more challenging on us than it is Madison. Here’s to perfect speech and healthy teeth going forward… and that this post is the only memory Madison has of the entire ordeal.