0:01  

Hey there friends. Welcome to the better postpartum podcast. I’m your host Angel Swan, crunchy mom, coffee addict and postpartum doula turned new mom, coach. This podcast is your audio guide to not just surviving but thriving during those early and newborn days. If you want to care for yourself, your household and your baby with confidence, grab your earbuds because this is the only podcast that you need. So what do you say? Should we get started with today’s episode? Let’s do this. Hey, friends, thank you so much for tuning in today. Before we get started, I’m going to read you a really nice review submitted by Amanda she says, great podcast with so many great tips. This podcast is so informative and easy to listen to. Thanks so much Angel. Hey, Amanda, thank you for that review. And listen, you guys, can you believe that I have 100 ratings and reviews. Holy moly, I think I only had 30 Going into 2022 and or the beginning of February and I all of a sudden have 100 reviews. That’s amazing. So I appreciate your support so much. And listen, if you’ve been loving this podcast and learning from it poorly, please go to Apple podcasts. Make sure you subscribe. Never miss an episode. Leave me a five star rating and a review if you really love me. And these little love notes that you’re leaving me, you guys. They really do make my day, every time I see a new one come up. It makes me so happy. I literally just like look at them and smile. And not only does it make me happy, it also helps other moms find this podcast so that they can learn from it too. So go ahead and leave me that reading interview. And you know, thanks so much, Amanda, I appreciate you. Now let’s get into today’s episode, we’re going to talk about lip ties and tongue ties. Okay, so first, let’s go over like what is a tongue tie? A tongue tie is when your baby’s tongue is attached too tightly at the base. So you know, if you like lift up your tongue, and you feel underneath there, there’s like this little band of tissue that connects the tongue to the base of your mouth. That is called your lingual frenulum. And if your baby has a lip or tongue tight, that formula may be too thick to short or maybe malformed. So when this happens, it makes it difficult for their tongue to move freely. And this is going to cause difficulty with breastfeeding. And then later with their speech, I’ll go over more of the like signs and symptoms later. But first, before we get there, let’s talk about a lip tie. Pretty much the same thing. So if you feel

2:49  

but like if you go up in your mouth,

2:53  

up behind your upper lip, between your lip and your gum, I’m doing it. So it might sound a little funny. But there’s another frenulum up there. Okay. And that is called the labial frenulum. You do have these on the top and the bottom. I think it’s more common for the top one to have a tie. But basically that little band of tissue up there between your baby’s lip and their gums. If it’s either like too thick or too short. If it’s difficult for them to like move the lip, that’s when you can probably tell they have a lip tie. So you can totally do like this little self exam by just like laying your baby on your lap and feeling the inside of their mouth. You can look at it, but just kind of run your finger under their tongue to feel that tissue and then up under their lip to feel that and you can look at it all the good stuff. You can do that. But a lot of people will think oh my gosh, it might be a lip or tongue tie and you look at it. And if you don’t know what you’re looking for, everything looks like a tie. So you can’t always tell if your baby has a tie just by looking at it. So let’s talk about some of the symptoms that come along with a lip or tongue tie and that might help you make that distinction. So if your baby has a lip tie or a tongue tie, they might have difficulty latching and I’ve seen this at the breast and the bottle. They just maybe it like on the breast you know that’s pretty obvious when they’re not latching well but on the bottle. This would look like a lot of like milk kind of dripping out of their mouth or you’d never see them quite like latch like they’re not getting that good suction happening. So that’s one thing is they’re having trouble latching the second thing. They might actually have a difficult time breathing while they’re eating. They might be making some clicking noises while suckling like very noticeable clicking They might have been written off by your pediatrician as a colicky baby. Mm hmm. guys know how I feel about colic, okay, they might drool excessively, they might have slow weight gain, or they might not be gaining weight at all. And, you know, this actually has happened with one of my clients. This baby, he’s so at Biddy. And, you know, not quite growing on a curve, but growing a little bit, but not like, when you when you look at a growth chart, right, there’s different percentiles with the curves. And if your baby’s not growing on the curve, then there’s cause for concern. It doesn’t matter if they’re on the highest curve or the lowest curve, as long as they’re growing as expected, then that’s what we’re looking for. But when they’re not progressing, even on their own curve, that’s when we’re like, maybe something’s going on. And so this baby that I was working with, you know, he wasn’t growing. He’s super, super fussy. Like, it just seems like there’s nothing you can really do to settle him. And then he would really get very tired after eating, but he was still hungry. And it’s just like, it’s like a vicious cycle. I, I felt like we were always like, feeding him and trying to get him to sleep and feeding him and trying to get him to sleep. Just it was like never ending. So that is definitely like, if your baby is incredibly hard to settle, there might just be hungry because they’re not eating well. Okay, so, back to my list here. Let me get back on track. Okay. Alright, so okay, the slow weight gain or not gaining weight at all, then you might have pain while you’re breastfeeding, because they’re like gumming you, which is like they’re kind of chewing on your nipple while they’re feeding, that really hurts, you will know if this is happening. You might be getting clogged ducts or mastitis frequently. Or they might always seem hungry for more, because they’re not able to extract the milk from the breast efficiently. And then they get too tired to even finish eating, even if they’re still hungry. So that’s kind of what I was talking about with my clients baby is he’s just so hungry, but little do does not have the energy to finish eating. And so, you know, you’re trying to put them down and they’re hungry, and then they’re trying to eat and they can’t get the milk. And it’s frustrating, right? It’s frustrating for you, it’s frustrating for the baby. So if you’re noticing some of these things with your baby, it might be worthwhile to schedule an appointment with a pediatric dentist,

7:54  

a pediatric dentist, okay, do not even I mean, really, you don’t even need to bother with your pediatrician, you can bring it up. But they’re not. Like they Most pediatricians are not familiar with lip or tongue ties. And they will usually just kind of look and be like, Oh, I think it’ll be okay. And they’ll send you on your way, which is what happened with my client, you know, they’re like, let’s just see how it goes. Meanwhile, for weeks, my clients struggling, right, they’re struggling with their baby who’s incredibly difficult to settle. And it’s at no fault of their own, like this little guy just has a lip or tongue tie that’s not resolved. So that’s why I don’t recommend waiting on your pediatrician to make the call. Just go straight to the pediatric dentist. Because in order to have a lip or tongue tie, actually, like diagnosed and treated, you have to go to the pediatric dentist anyway. So if you’re struggling with this stuff, like don’t put yourself through it all for weeks and weeks and weeks, if you can just go straight to the pediatric dentist, just do it. Just do it. You can usually self refer, it’s not something that you have to like get a referral from your pediatrician or anything like that. And going straight to the pediatric dentist is the quickest way to do it. You know, you don’t have to jump through all the hoops of like having your pediatrician look at it having an ear nose and throat doctor look at it. Because you already know what’s up. You’re an informed mom, you know what’s going on with your baby, you know them best. So go straight to the pediatric dentist and they will help you out. So if your baby does have a tie, it’s actually a very easy thing to treat. And it’s a really quick procedure called a frenectomy. So this procedure is done either with a laser or surgically meaning they just cut it and all they do is they go in, they remove some small parts of the frenulum that that band of tissue that I was talking about earlier. They remove small parts of the frenulum to release that tension so that the lip or the tongue can move freely. And like I said, it’s really quick, it’s in and out. And after about two days, your baby will be healed, they will have a whole new mouth, and they will become a pro at latching, you might have to kind of teach them or they might just get it right away. But this will make latching so much easier. It’ll make your baby easier to manage. Like everything will just kind of click into place when you have a lip or tongue tight resolved, because that way, you know, you’re resolving all of those symptoms that I mentioned, like all of them, the weight gain, the trouble latching, the difficulty breathing, the drooling, the colic, the weight gain, I think already said that. The pain with breastfeeding, clogged ducts, all of that all of it. It’s like, it’s magic, really, it really, really is. So, it is if you think that this is happening, right, it’s always a good idea to have the baby’s tie released and treated as early as possible. That way, you know, you just resolve everything that I mentioned, you can also avoid any complications as your baby gets older. Because lip and tongue ties that go on treating, they can actually result in sleep apnea, speech problems, and even difficulty chewing and swallowing food. So if you think you’re maybe has a tie, just trust your mom, gut, go ahead and Google your local pediatric dentist, give them a call, tell them what’s going on. And they can get you in for an evaluation and then resolve the tie if your baby does have one. And that’s it on the lip and tongue ties. Not a super long episode, but I think that more people need to know about this. I see it a lot in Facebook groups of moms like posting pictures of their baby’s mouth. So like, do they have a tie? And it’s like, it’s like not that easy to to just look at a picture and say yes or no. So hopefully like having all this knowledge will help you kind of decide whether or not you might need to get your baby evaluated and treated for a tie. Alright, so as always, don’t forget, go and hang out with me on Instagram at Angel dot swan. You can grab my free postpartum planner all the good free things on my website, Angel swan.com. And of course, you better not forget to leave me a review on Apple podcasts. Make sure you rate review and subscribe to this podcast. Thank you so much for listening.

12:42  

I will talk to you soon. Bye bye. Thank you so much for listening to the better postpartum podcast. Here’s what I want you to do next. If you loved what you heard today, would you do me a giant favor and leave me a written five star review? Those little love notes that you leave are the perfect way to thank me for putting out these episodes just for you. Seriously, it would mean the world to me. Next, take a screenshot of the episode you’re listening to right now and share it on your Instagram stories and make sure you tag me at Angel dot swan. That’s SW o n so that more moms can find this podcast and hopefully get the advice and encouragement they need to truly thrive with their babies. And don’t forget to come back every single week for more nuggets of wisdom and truth bombs about the early motherhood journey. I’ll talk to you next time. Bye bye