A Tongue Tie Story…
Our tongue tie and feeding story began when we were told at 35 weeks that our first baby would need to be induced and come into the world much earlier than we had expected. After an uncomplicated but long induction, he was born a healthy 6 lb 1 oz baby boy!
Being an SLP myself, I knew about oral function and the challenges that come with feeding preemies, but admittedly at that time, I only knew the tip of the iceberg regarding tongue ties. We began what would be a very long preemie breastfeeding journey.
This included a 3 week NICU stay, pumping every 3 hours, lots of paced bottles followed up by tube feeds, and the occasional attempts at latching. We finally began getting some milk transfer during our weighted feedings with the nipple shield, but all along I was noticing that his tongue looked restricted and his lips always had a hard time flanging out. I remember bringing this up to various providers including hospital LCs, NICU doctors, pediatricians, nurses and the many more professionals we worked with upon getting home from the hospital, but they all kept saying, "it's not a tongue tie, he's just a preemie, they take a while to figure out breastfeeding."
Looking back, one of the major red flags was how slow he was to transfer milk, even with a bottle, along with the many other symptoms I was having (painful latch, open mouth posture, slow weight gain, low supply, clogged ducts, inefficient breastfeeding).
At 3 weeks old (38 weeks adjusted) we had finally made it home, but our baby was still not gaining consistently enough to exclusively breastfeed. We were triple feeding without a plan to get off of that rigid unsustainable schedule, all we knew is he was still sleepy and not able to transfer milk well enough, and breastfeeding was still very painful causing me to have difficulty weaning from the nipple shield. I felt like because he was gaining weight (only due to my husband and my dedicated and determined around the clock pumping/breastfeeding/bottle supplementation plan) providers dismissed my concerns and his obvious tongue/lip tie symptoms.
Finally, at 9 weeks old (4 weeks adjusted) I self referred to a tongue tie savvy pediatric dentist and all my suspicions were confirmed. He had a very evident tongue and lip tie that were released that day via CO2 laser. We haven't looked back since. We completed the post procedure stretches for 3 weeks and did some suck training with my SLP colleague and friend, who came to visit the week following the release. Two weeks after the release our baby was able to take a paci again with a functional suck pattern and he finally was able to transfer 3-4 oz breastfeeding allowing him to gain weight without supplementation. Our 3 month pumping and triple feeding journey was finally over and I could breastfeed on demand like I had always dreamed of.
We were still breastfeeding at bedtime 18 months later and he finally was able to sleep with his mouth closed and nasal breath about 80% of the time. If not, I close his mouth during our many contact naps. He had an excellent introduction into solid foods at 6 months and is now an adventurous eater and very articulate talker for his age. Since our journey, I have learned so much more about oral ties, including taking Autumn Henning's TOTS course and switched from being a hospital based SLP to working at a tongue tie focused private practice in Chicago. I am so thankful we trusted our instincts and finally had the support of tongue tie educated professionals to address his ties and achieve our feeding goals.
If your feeding issues are not resolving, don't be afraid to seek out second, third, and fourth opinions! And sometimes there are multiple things going on, preemies can have oral ties too!
