undiagnosed lip tie?

[Allyson11]

Could an undiagnosed lip tie affected breast feeding? Has anyone got any experience of this. We stopped at 6 days and I struggled to get him to latch and stay latched by my self. Not sure if this is the right place.

 

[Wiggler]

My daughter has a lip tie and it affected breastfeeding, her latch was awful and although she could feed fine and got enough she shredded me. We also had problems when we gave her a bottle, she couldn't lift her top lip at all and it took her ages to drink from the bottle, she would get frustrated and stop and start a lot.

 

[Sproglet]

Hope you don't mind me crashing. My LO has quite a severe lip tie, her lip doesn't flange out at all. she struggles to breastfeed but also struggles with a bottle as she can't form a seal, so she is VERY noisy, dribbles milk everywhere and takes in lots of air. We have an appointment to get her lip and tongue looked at tomorrow.

 

[Allyson11]

He has always dribbled with the bottle too and has only recently drank a bottle in a decent amount of time. I'll see if I can get a pic later. Aren't these things routinely looked for? Might have saved me more if the guilt at the start

 

[Sproglet]

Nope, not routine at all. And sometimes even when you specifically ask, the doctors dismiss you, and either say there's nothing wrong, or I have been told lip tie causes no problems at all. And baby taking in air does not give them wind!?!

Here's a pic of my LO's lip

 

[CoffeePuffin]

My little one seems to have a lip tie. She also has a cleft palate so it's super hard for her to drink bless her. I think it should be checked for since it can affect their feeding.

 

[lozzy21]

YES! go have a look at my post in the BF section.

 

[Sproglet]

I went to see the specialist, as well as the lip tie she has a mild tongue tie so she doesn't sustain a suck. He seems to think the tongue movement is more of a problem than the lip. He won't snip either because she CAN suck properly, she just gets tired/lazy.

He said to run your finger around the inside if LO's lips before feeding to moisten and loosen them.

His nurse said if baby is struggling to bottle feed try a different brand- I use TT closer to nature and Avent because they encourage a wide latch, like breastfeeding, but the nurse assures me they're the worst 2 brands for babies with feeding problems! Any regular orthodontic teat would be better.

 

[Allyson11]

He has tommee tippee. Late as it is I couldn't justify changing. It just would be nice to feel that it wasn't my fault.

 

[Sproglet]

Of course it's not your fault- I just wish the NHS were more on the ball with spotting (and treating!) lip and tongue ties, it should be part of the newborn check in my opinion. There seems to be a lot of mums struggling with this at the moment! They're trying to push breastfeeding, but ignoring the fact that there are a significant portion of babies who physically can't.