Tongue tie

Ask to be referred to infant feeding team or go private to a practitioner. My midwives told me they don't have specific adequate training x

Backing up Kim - NHS midwives don’t get adequate training on it in general. Multiple midwives and health visitors told me both my children didn’t but they did - they were posterior ties which are less obvious. First baby I went to a breastfeeding clinic who gave me the names of a few private practitioners. With my new baby I was lucky to have a midwife who had trained with a specialist so she identified it and wrote my referral so I was able to get done on NHS. definitely worth going private if you think your baby has it. Things to look for including baby falling asleep at the breast, short feeds, milk leakage, a clicking sound when feeding and the worst for me - agonising, cracked, bloody nipples!

Your midwife/HV should be able to refer you to an infant feeding team. They will check it and they will also watch how he feeds and offer advice to improve position/latch etc..

We had very similar and went to the local feeding support group called cherrubs in Cheshire. They checked him and said he did and we then went for a private treatment

Midwifes have checked my boy twice and said its all good. 7weeks in breast feeding and im still sore. Went to breast feeding groups and the bf specialist has reffered us to a tongue tie specialist as she believes he has a subtle one. Midwifes are not specialists and they can miss it if its not an obvious one. They were looking at the latch, how high he can raise his tongue, if he can move his tongue to the sides properly and if breast feeding hurts.

It needs a specialist assessment but there’s some things you can look out for.. When baby’s sleeping is their mouth closed - if so pull their chin down and see if their tongue is suctioned to the roof of their mouth (bcos it should be for optimal nose breathing). If it is positioned up then can u see the frenulum and if so then it’s ’typically’ tied if it’s either very thick or if it’s attached quite far down the tongue. (Not a one size fits all as some tongue ties are posterior and can still be tied despite being attached far back on the tongue). If tongue is positioned down try use two clean little fingers to lift the tongue up and have a look. Other tie signs are if they stick their tongue out does the tip fork/look like a heart shape? If they were to suck your little finger does their tongue easily form that U shape and hold the rhythmic sucking motion consistently? But yeah there’s SO many variables and it really does need to be a tongue tie specialist; not just a IBCLC

Thank you all for your advice, I’m going to definitely look into this xx hope you and your little ones are all keeping well xx