30 September 2018

"Tongue-tied" is not just a figure of speech

The New York Times reports on a boy who was thought to have a neurologic etiology for his speech problem, until a dentist noticed that the boy's tongue was fixed to the floor of his mouth by a tight frenulum.
“My husband and I were the only ones that could understand him.”  That all changed in April 2017, when Dr. Amy Luedemann-Lazar, a pediatric dentist, was performing unrelated procedures on Mason’s teeth. She noticed that his lingual frenulum, the band of tissue under his tongue, was shorter than is typical and was attached close to the tip of his tongue, keeping him from moving it freely.

Dr. Luedemann-Lazar ran out to the waiting room to ask the Motzes if she could untie Mason’s tongue using a laser.  After a quick Google search, the parents gave her permission to do so. Dr. Luedemann-Lazar completed the procedure in 10 seconds, she said.

After his surgery, Mason went home. He had not eaten all day. Ms. Motz heard him say: “I’m hungry. I’m thirsty. Can we watch a movie?”

5 comments:

  1. My daughter was born with a tongue tie. The tie was divided (by cutting rather than laser) at about three months, which caused an immediate improvement in breastfeeding; her inability to latch on correctly had made it extremely painful for me, but after the division we were able to continue with breastfeeding for another three years. The Association of Tongue-tie Practitioners suggests that the incidence of tongue tie may be as high as one in ten, but that only about half of these infants will experience difficulty in breastfeeding.

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    1. Thank you so much for your comment, aliphil. For those interested, here is a link to the home page for the Association of Tongue-tie Practitioners:

      http://www.tongue-tie.org.uk/

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    2. Quite right the women in my family tend to give birth to babies with tongue ties. For our family at least it is fairly routine to have the tongue tie released as soon as difficulty with breast feeding is noticed. It improves rapidly thereafter.

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  2. Our dentist told me that my daughter's upper frenulum may have to be cut. It's the membrane tying the upper lip to the gums and a short one may cause a gap in the front teeth. So I googled frenulum in front of my daughter. Ha! I don't recommend that unless you have good parental filters in place. Apparently "frenulum" is a term for thin connective tissue and there are several on the body, not just in the mouth but also in the genital region.

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  3. I had to have mine cut when I was born, again as a teen by my dentist as it was pulling on my lower gumline and now my new dentist is recommending it be done again. I'm not looking forward to having it done again as I remember it being quite painful! The only problems its caused me involves licking ice cream cones, lol!

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