So you just gave birth to a wonderful new bundle of joy. You check everything, make sure everything is where it’s supposed to be. Ten little toes, ten toes pubescent, everything seems to be in order… until baby cries and look inside his mouth is good. Hmm, the language is a little odd. It is possible that your baby is tongue-tied. I speak this word which means “in hesitant words”, clearly not since we are talking about newborn baby.
She gave birth to two beautiful and perfectly bound babies with a wonderful tongue. What exactly does tongue-tied mean? According to pectus-basics.com, the term ankyloglossia is a medical term for tongue-tied. This is when the band of tissue that connects the bottom of the tongue to the floor of the mouth, such as the franulum, is too short or tight. This can cause the baby to reduce the movement of his tongue, which can prevent breastfeeding, and later, speech development.
Ankyloglossia is congenital and actually hereditary. No one else in my family has the condition that I’m aware of, but then again, I don’t usually go around asking my older family members. I know all this to be true, that my eldest son, who had the most serious case, and my youngest daughter, from different marriages, thus two different fathers, and the same mother, me. Guess in my gene pool.
When my firstborn son was born, I noticed that he had this heart shape shaped like a tongue. I also noticed that he could hardly move his tongue, and then I began to observe that when he was nursing, it sometimes dropped from the breast, and he lost the suction. The first made a few weeks of very painful nursing for me because my nipples were very painful. With my first child, I had nothing to gain experience until my second child arrived seventeen months later. Oh, what a difference! It was then that I truly understood the full impact of how the child’s chronic tongue-tied condition had affected his nurse. I immediately brought this up with her pediatrician, who liked the “wait” and “wait” approach. His doctor didn’t recommend what a “tongue-clip” was at this age, but he wanted to wait and see if his speech would improve later. Many pediatricians don’t jump on the tongue-clipping bandwagon, but instead wait to see if the french extends itself, which it eventually will. So I left to deal with things, but to live, so it was not in time for a great thing.
When my son grew into a torpor and began to eat more solid foods, he noticed that he was often joking with eating bread, which I began to suspect must be tongue-tied. Without full mobility and use of the tongue, he was challenging eating certain foods, so we always had to be very careful with him and pay attention while we ate. It continued to thrive again and the pediatricians suggested waiting again, maybe until school, if it was still affected. his speech
Well, I became very talkative, and I began to notice some questions in the speech as if they were burning. I try to simply say the words correctly to him and try to get him to imitate me, but he just can’t seem to make the “th”, “sh”, and especially the “ch” sounds. Then when one day came to me and told me his friends were just having fun he said “Church”, I knew it was time was. He was still in pre-school age at this time, so I wanted to have a tongue-clipping procedure, known as a “frenetomy”, before Kindergarten started. At this time the pediatrician was on with an idea on the board, and I decided to set him up. ear/nose/throat specialist
It was a simple, in-procedure where Popaver was given locally, and he was awake throughout the process. Now, let me tell you, it was very scary, but he was five at the time. He later got a lot of cool toys from the doctor to get some of his stingers out. My son did not succeed, but immediately afterwards he made a great deal of interest in speech, and he healed quite quickly without any complications. I explained to the school that he had been tongue-tied and had just finished this, and they recommended that he have speech sessions with the speech therapist at the school. After only one or two sessions, they decided they didn’t even need speech therapy. So I considered the full success of frenetomy!
I am happy to report that he is now a wonderful 22 years young beautiful girlfriend and college educated, who not only does he speak well, but he also sings well. He’s never met himself, and he’s performed on the NCAA (lead, no less), and performed in several dance shows, and has even been heard on American Idol. You will never know that you were born tongue-tied.
My daughter, on the other hand, had a very mild case. His tongue had no heart shape when he attached it, and his chances of nursing, eating, or speaking were never hindered. I had discussed her condition with a group of pediatricians because of what had happened to my first-born son, and it was clear to everyone that the cause was so mild that no one would do a frenetomy on it. that in it, it was purely for cosmetic purposes. I figured if I didn’t care, I wouldn’t. To be honest, I rarely even think about her anymore because she speaks so clearly and has nothing to do with her. I also believe that she stretched out the bit entirely in her time, without any intermission.
If you are concerned that your baby is tongue-tied, ask your pediatrician about this. Let them decide what is to be done. If it is so severe that it interferes with feeding in a bottle or at the breast, where the baby is not thriving, it can be adopted earlier than in my son. Either way, don’t sweat it, your baby is absolutely perfect no matter what, and that’s something that’s easily fixed.
