The below story was written by one of my warrior mamas, and reposted with permission.Below you will find her story regarding upper lip tie.
Our upper lip tie story:
The first two weeks without the shield left my nipples cracked, bleeding and in agony. That first night feeding I remember doing it every 30 minutes. In the hospital, I asked the nurse for help, it was a weekend and the lactation consultant wasn’t available. The several nurses I had weren’t very helpful. For two and a half months we used a nipple shield because nursing without it was just too painful.
Nursing with the shield worked for a while. I still would feed every hour for the whole two months. We’d have good days and bad. Baby had awful acid reflux and gas. I thought it was the dairy so I cut it out. Turns out it could have been due to the lip tie. I’ve been off dairy for months and I’m not about to rule it out and start it back up though. I wondered if baby was colicky and after several attempts at bottle feeding with no luck, I was forced to quit my job. Nursing was the only thing that would soothe him. Acid reflux got a little better, but never fully went away.
As baby began to grow, his suck power increased. At 2 months old, the nipple shield started to hurt, pulling my skin through the holes with his incredible sucking strength. Over the next two weeks I started trying to feed with out the shield as often as I could. I began researching lip ties and found his. When feeding without the shield would hurt too much, I would switch back for a day or so to heal. Then I would try again.
That brings us to this 10 week mark. Baby has been really fussy nursing, getting worse every day. I made an appointment with our Lactation Consultant. She came by next day on Tuesday and saw all of my struggles. Baby was refusing to nurse and acting like he was in pain when he latched. She agreed with me on the lip tie and also felt that this was the problem. The relief of her support was emotionally overwhelming. Finally, someone listening to me! She checked his milk transfer by weighing him before and after a feeding and it was really low. This is why I’m having to feed so often. Baby isn’t getting fully satisfied and isn’t taking good naps during the day because of this. She said that if I hadn’t been so persistent in feeding when baby demanded, he would have had poor weight gain and I would have probably had mastitis, clogged ducts and a damaged milk supply.
Here is a picture of his class IV upper lip tie.
We had a frenectomy done two days ago to release it. Immediately after the quick, easy procedure, I was able to nurse him for the first time pain free!
Several people tried to help (bless them) with advice on letting baby cry it out, but I absolutely refused to do this. I followed my new mom instincts and consoled my baby with nursing 24/7. Feedings use to take half hour to an hour, then he’d be hungry again in half hour to an hour. Now they take 15 minutes, with a satisfied baby at the end! We’ve even been able to go 2-3 hours without a feeding!
The pediatrician said, “In 15 years I have never seen a case where upper lip ties effect breastfeeding.” And maybe usually it doesn’t, but in my case it did.
I followed my instincts, did my research and found a huge lacking in the diagnoses of upper lip ties relating to breastfeeding issues.
Pretty much feeling like a super hero mom now and so glad I was so head strong on sticking to breastfeeding. If I hadn’t worked so hard and if I hadn’t found the solution, I don’t know what I would have done. There needs to be more support for this in the pediatrician and pediatric dental world. I have come across many many many stories similar to mine! I can only imagine the amount of women who don’t even know they have this same issue, feeling defeated, they switch to formula when they don’t really want to.
Thank you Rebecca for sharing with us your story! Click here for more information on lip tie symptoms and solutions.