Tongue-Tie...

...or Ankyloglossia (as it is uncommonly known), is apparently an extremely common condition in the newborn - basically, the normal membrane under the tongue is unusually short or thick thus preventing normal movement of the tongue. It fixes itself (the "wait and see" approach) in the vast majority of cases between the ages of 6 months and 6 years, but can also treated medically if there is a (good) reason to do so...

Poppy was tongue-tied, it was picked up (right away) upon her first visit to Baby Cafe (where Flyingpops had taken her as feeding was proving unusually painful) by Anne Humphries, who referred us right away for treatment, but the first available appointment on the NHS was two weeks away...! That would seem fairly reasonable under normal circumstances, but Flyingpops really had been through enough already and some of the gasps and exclamations being issued during feeding were frankly worse than those during childbirth.

We tried her on expressed milk in a tiny baby bottle, but she just didn't know what to do with it (with hindsight that was also almost certainly symptomatic of the ankyloglossia). Not having the inclination to wait two weeks (let alone months or years) as we were rapidly running out of ideas - Poppy *could* feed, but it was *extremely* painful for Mummy and gave Poppy terrible wind -we turned to private treatment options.

The place we started with was the LCGB (the Lactation Consultants of Great Britain), specifically their list of private Tongue-Tie dividers (chopped up (*SORRY*) broken down by county). Flyingpops started the process of checking through the list and was lucky enough to stumble upon Lynn Timms (the designated divider for Sussex) after speaking to our local one (who quoted £110 plus £15 petrol and wouldn't be able to see us for 5 days), Lynn said she *could* see us, but she would have to travel all the way from Portsmouth (she quoted £75 plus £30 train fare and would be able to see us in 2 days) but she suggested we speak to Anne Dobson who covered London just in case (but Anne quoted £160 basic plus petrol which we couldn't even politely entertain)...So, Flyingpops booked in Lynn and we settled down for an uncomfortable few days wait...

Amazingly, the very next morning at 9am the telephone rang, it was the NHS offering us a cancelled appointment at 4pm that day (if we could make it to Dorking)! Flyingpops frantically cancelled Lynn (who was *still* kind enough to call us back offering advice - so can't recommend her enough - find her website here - if you do need to take the private route and are in her catchment area) and at the appointed time we all bundled into the car and headed off to Dorking (dropping off Thomas with Nanjan and Pops on the way)...

When we arrived the centre was completely deserted, the two ladies running it sat twiddling their thumbs (so I think they probably could have admitted a few more people to attend today rather than sending them off seeking private treatment!)...

It started with a brief description of the procedure to come - a quick snip with a pair of surgical scissors through the lingual frenulum - apparently nerve endings are rare or non-existent in this section of membrane at this stage of life and healing takes place during the feed that takes place immediately after the procedure (so in literally a couple of minutes)-

- and then we popped behind a small barrier for *two* snips, a lot of crying (and a little bit of blood) followed by Flyingpops taking baby Poppy off for a feed (which looked a lot like some sort of twisted vampire fantasy)-

- while I was presented with the (extremely nice) surgical scissors "as a memento" as otherwise they were just going to be incinerated (they live in the first aid kit now-thanks!)-

- and then we were on our way! The whole process actually taking longer to explain than complete...had we paid £160-odd quid for someone to come to the house and do 3.5 seconds work, I might have been (just a little) taken aback...but it's one of those sort of any-amount-of-money situations when your baby can't feed... :(

Anyway, to conclude - all's well that ends well, Poppy is feeding perfectly now, can cope with a bottle (on the rare occasions we are using expressed breast milk) and can stick her tongue out far enough to lick her nose (if she wants to)...as for the process? Try and get it on the NHS, it's such a *simple*, ridiculously quick thing to have fixed (I can't imagine how there is a two week waiting list in Surrey - those ladies at the Medwyn Centre could probably do 40 babies an hour (if they put their mind to it) rather than 7 per day (unless I am missing something here))...?