Hello!

97 Comment

A WARNING has been issued to new parents about the practice of tongue snipping in newborn babies.

Parents are outraged after Dr Thomas Lyons, of Eagleby Medical Centre,  said the tongue tie procedure, frenotomy, was painful to babies and “ also unnecessary and costly to parents.”

The news comes after Jimmy Rees, aka Jimmy Giggles, withdrew from ‘Dancing With The Stars’ to spend time with his family after his baby son’s recent health scare following a tongue tie procedure.

mack

“All the research that doctors have done show that very few babies have benefited from it.”

Dr Lyons said parents were getting it done at day two or three of life when they did not even know if there was a problem.

“I’m recommending they don’t listen to their lactation consultant – that they get a second opinion from their GP who will monitor the baby’s weight,” he said.

Lismore paediatrician Dr Chris Ingall said tongue tie “was the new black” and he was concerned by the increasing number of babies being treated for it.

“It’s an operation performed on something that heals itself over time,” Dr Ingall said. “Mothers are being told their children will not be able to speak properly and that their jaws won’t grow properly, so there is a fear campaign operating out there and it is being driven by dentists and lactation consultants and osteopaths referring to each other. They’ve turned nothing into something.”

Dr Deborah Bailey said: “I’ve been a paediatric surgeon for 30 years and I would have done maybe half a dozen a year in older children, now babies are being done at about 30 a day.”

Dr Thomas Lyons claimed lactation consultants and midwives were “creating an industry”.

“I’m shocked that it is now a common practice,” he said.

In 2010-11 there were 739 babies treated for tongue tie in NSW but by 2014-15 this figure had leapt to 2178.

Worldwide tongue tie surgery rates are rising. In one Australian study, tongue tie surgery rates rose by 3,710%. Canada recorded an 89% increase, the USA a 300% increase.

Dr Lyons said if the baby was not gaining weight, looked sick and was malnourished they can easily be feed from the bottle with no problems to growth at all, but breast feeding may not be possible.

“What I’m saying is that there is no rush, that parents should wait a couple weeks and get a second opinion,” he said.

“They’re recommending the tongue snip without discussing the alternatives that their baby may grow up well on just the bottle.”

Mum of three Laura Mazza has previously shared her battle to get support with a tongue tie diagnosis. Read her story here.

And another Mum shared her experience of tongue tie after her newborn’s dramatic weight loss – read more here.

Symptoms of tongue-tie

The symptoms of tongue-tie can include that:

•the tongue can’t poke out past the lips
•the tongue tip can’t touch the roof of the mouth
•the tongue can’t be moved sideways to the corners of the mouth
•the tongue tip may look flat or square, instead of pointy when extended
•the tongue tip may look notched or heart-shaped
•A baby with tongue-tie may have difficulties breastfeeding or bottle-feeding
•The front teeth in the lower jaw may have a gap between them.

Causes of tongue-tie
There are two main causes of tongue-tie. Either the frenum is too short and tight, or it failed to move back down the tongue during development and is still attached to the tongue tip. In the second case, a heart-shaped tongue tip is one of the obvious symptoms. It is not clear whether or not tongue-tie is inherited.

Tongue-tie in toddlers seems to be less common than in babies, which suggests that a short frenum can normalise itself as the child grows. In persistent cases of tongue-tie, the child may have certain speech problems.

Difficulties can include creating sounds that need the tongue or tongue tip to:

•touch the roof of the mouth, to pronounce sounds such as ‘t, d, n, l, s, z’
•arch off the floor of the mouth, to pronounce sounds such as ‘r’.

The Australian Breastfeeding Assoc says some babies with tongue-tie are able to attach to the breast and suck well. However, many have breastfeeding problems, such as nipple damage, poor milk transfer and low weight gains in the baby, and recurrent blocked ducts or mastitis due to ineffective milk removal.

A baby needs to be able to cup the breast with his tongue to be able to remove milk from the breast well. If the tongue is anchored to the floor of the mouth, the baby cannot do this as well. The baby may not be able to open his mouth wide enough to take in a full mouthful of breast tissue. This can result in ‘nipple-feeding’ because the nipple is not drawn far enough back in the baby’s mouth and constantly rubs against the baby’s hard palate as he feeds. As a result, the mother is likely to suffer nipple trauma.

There are many signs that a baby’s tongue-tie may be causing problems with breastfeeding, but you don’t have to have all of them:
•nipple pain and damage
•the nipple looks flattened after breastfeeding
•you can see a compression/stripe mark on the nipple at the end of a breastfeed
•the baby keeps losing suction while feeding and sucks in air
•the baby makes a clicking sound when feeding
•the baby fails to gain weight well
•the tip of his tongue may be notched or heart-shaped when he cries
•he may readily gag

It is important to note that all of the above signs can be related to other breastfeeding problems and are not necessarily related to tongue-tie. If you experience any of the signs above, you may wish to consult an expert.

Share your comments below.

 

Image via Getty

  • I suppose I am really up with what goes on with the new born because I am a grand mother but I had to stop reading this story because it made me feel ill,

    Reply

  • Words cannot even begin to accurately describe how angry and upset I was to read this article. This so called “Doctor” clearly has not been properly trained in this field otherwise he would not have made such misinformed comments.
    My son had a severe lip and tongue tie that wasn’t picked up until he was 10weeks old. It was pure hell. I was at my wits end and my son spent the majority of the day and night screaming, feeding was a nightmare and no sleep was had by anyone. He had it revised at 3months old but it took another 2months for all of the symptoms to disapate.
    Ties are hereditary and if my next child has a lip or tongue tie I’m sure as hell not going to wait weeks and weeks to “see if things improve”.
    Second opinions are fine but don’t take this article as the second opinion. Get credentialed information not a slapped together article by someone without proper credentials.

    Reply

  • Oh my! I’ve never heard of this procedure beautiful. Better to be careful!

    Reply

  • It is not an unnecessary procedure if your baby’s ties affect feeding. And this whole thin that “babies may grow just as well on bottle” drives me crazy. It’s statements like these from respected doctors that are to blame for Australia’s dire breast feeding rates and the idea that “oh, well, formula will do the job. Yes, formula is good in circumstances where people can’t breastfeed, but it isn’t the BEST option, and nor should it be billed as just as good as breast milk. And waiting for weeks before seeing whether or not to have the procedure in most cases will completely compromise the breast feeding relationship. As it did for me. 4.5 months of breast refusal and pumping later, I was one of the lucky ones who managed to get my daughter back to breast through perseverance and with support of an IBCLC (you know, those hacks you shouldn’t listen to). But misinformed doctors are one of the biggest problems with breast feeding in the country. They do a grand total of about 4 hours of study on breast feeding in most cases, which is completely inadequate. So many of my friends that have up breast feeding before they were ready due to solvable problems have mummy guilt over it. And nine times out of ten it could be solved with the proper support from… You guessed it, a well qualified LC.

    Reply

  • My daughter had lip and tongue ties which caused difficulty with breastfeeding. She couldn’t breastfeed except when lying down in bed and became extremely distressed before every feed. Before diagnosis and revision of the ties, she was refusing feeds, choking while feeding and having difficulty coordinating her suck, swallow, breathe while feeding. Fortunately her ties were diagnosed by an IBCLC (International Board Certified Lactation Consultant) and she had them revised by laser surgery. She had absolutely no complications or bleeding and within six weeks she was indistinguishable from a baby born without ties. This article based on the opinion of one doctor with a lack of education in ties has the potential to mislead parents out there experiencing feeding difficulties. Ties affect bottle fed babies too. Prior to revision, my daughter could not take a bottle either.

    Reply

  • It’s called a frenectomy with a c not frenetomy. Seriously if you guys are going to rehash a badly written article at least check your facts. Seriously this is a very damaging article to be touting. Good journalism is about looking at the facts and presenting both sides of the argument using professionals who know what they are talking about. The original article reads like there is another agenda at stake and you should really be careful what you believe if you are unwilling to verify facts. Such as what are the research papers this “doctor” is referring to? How is it that there are 100’s of research articles proving that releasing TT assists breastfeeding? Why would a doctor who is meant to do the best for their patients indirectly pushing formula? DId you verify with him if he is qualified to make such comments? Did you verify how many hours he has trained in breastfeeding/infant nutrition and ties? did you compare this info with an IBCLC? I doubt it.

    Reply

  • It\’s called a frenectomy with a c not frenetomy. Seriously if you guys are going to rehash a badly written article at least check your facts. Seriously this is a very damaging article to be touting. Good journalism is about looking at the facts and presenting both sides of the argument using professionals who know what they are talking about. The original article reads like there is another agenda at stake and you should really be careful what you believe if you are unwilling to verify facts. Such as what are the research papers this \\\\\\\”doctor\\\\\\\” is referring to? How is it that there are 100\\\\\\\’s of research articles proving that releasing TT assists breastfeeding? Why would a doctor who is meant to do the best for their patients indirectly pushing formula? DId you verify with him if he is qualified to make such comments? Did you verify how many hours he has trained in breastfeeding/infant nutrition and ties? did you compare this info with an IBCLC? I doubt it.

    Reply

  • Sometimes i wonder why this things are happening – so good to have these warnings.

    Reply

  • Was told some of my children were tongue tied but it never affected them feeding wise. My oldest did have speech problems but this was easily fixed when he was older. My daughter in law was informed to have her daughter’s cut but she was able to feed on the breast and at 17 months speech is going ok. Yes i would get 2nd and third opinion too.

    Reply

  • I agree that you should always get a second or third opinion before having any of these procedures done. I had one doctor tell me that my boys labial frenulum was too tight but yet he had no problems feeding nor were there any other problems so I got an opinion from another GP who agreed with me that it wasn’t needed. I definitely have no need for it now seeing as Bub face planted the floor (from sitting up) and knocked his mouth, tearing the tie! Btw there is no need to freak out like I did if that happens to you!

    Reply

  • I had my son’s tongue snipped and don’t regret it at all, he didn’t have issues putting on weight however it did affect our feeding relationship. He was able to achieve a much better attachment which stop the damage it was causing to me.

    Reply

  • Wow, not something i’d rush into without getting a few opinions from qualified people

    Reply

  • My son is almost 2 1/2 and they wouldn’t snip his (severe) tongue tie as a newborn. Now he’s having lots of problems eating lots of foods and speech development. We are still waiting for the hospital to contact us back for surgery. Now this is going to cost us and the health system so much more in the long run!!!

    Reply

Post a comment

To post a review/comment please join us or login so we can allocate your points.

↥ Back to top

Thanks For Your Star Rating!

Would you like to add a written rating or just a star rating?

Write A Rating Just A Star Rating
Join