Monday, September 22, 2014
When my little Karebear was a few weeks old I realized she had a lip tie as well as a tongue tie. I asked some local moms where they had went to get their baby's ties corrected and they recommended UIHC's ENT department. It took a few weeks til they could fit us in to see the doctor to do the surgery, and I had to have a referral to that doctor via my daughter's pediatrician. 
The doctor seemed nursing friendly but did several things that I didn't feel right about. They called in interns to assist in the surgery, that had absolutely no idea about what a lip tie or tongue tie was. They weren't helpful to even have in the room. The nurse got a gauze and dunked it in sugar water then shoved it in my daughter's mouth. Nobody had any reason to do that, at least I have no idea why they wanted to do that. They made me hold her while they bent down to do the surgery and it didn't seem ergonomical, I don't understand how they made sure they were in there good enough to get the job done. Scissors and scalpels were used to revise both her class 4 lip tie and class 2 tongue tie. Also, they put this nasty silver stuff on the incision site to keep her from bleeding. They didn't tell me what to do for oral exercises, and they didn't care to check back on her unless there were any complications. I was told to give her Tylenol for pain.
Photo of her at 2 am the night after surgery.
After that, she never would nurse again. Before, she was unable to transfer milk, so I became an exclusive pumping mom. I had been both nursing and pumping prior to the surgery. She absolutely refused to latch since the day she was born. I felt I was forcing her to breastfeed to get her fed. Feeding by bottles helped her gain and was a great way to continue providing her breastmilk. 
You can read some of the stories I've written so far about our breastfeeding experience at these links- http://latchedonmom.blogspot.com/2014/06/breastfeeding-or-pumping-through-it.html & http://latchedonmom.blogspot.com/2014/09/beginning-to-wean-from-pumping-still.html 
So moving forward, we continued having issues. She still had feeding difficulties including choking on milk, milk coming out the sides of her mouth, congestion from milk being expelled into lungs and eating only 2 ounces max at a time. I wondered if she still had problems because the surgery wasn't complete. I just didn't know what to think. We've been through so much! 
I recently met someone while attending the big latch on who had been an exclusive pumping mom for 18 months and got her baby back to breast. She suggested meeting up for a reevaluation with Dr. Mindy Hochgesang in Clinton, Iowa. It was quite a drive but after reviewing her Facebook page, I realized how knowledgeable she was and driven to help babes with tongue ties.  She also seemed to have a very natural approach. I felt she was a clinician I NEEDED to see. One to trust. Hee office got me scheduled to have Karebear seen within only a few days!  You can check her page out below!
 https://www.facebook.com/tongueties
So we went. Today. Karebear had a pretty significant posterior tongue tie that needed corrected. She was literally not able to use her tongue the way it is meant to be used. So we put on the swaddling blanket and laser light protective glasses and it was over in minutes. She is released! No more worries! We will still work on latching as usual. And we are doing craniosacral therapy. Tomorrow is her third CST appointment. 
Things are working out. Things are getting better. I am keeping my head up and working on getting my baby to optimum health! I cannot wait to see the improvement from this release. 
Here is a pic of today- a before and after of the tie!


0 comments:

Post a Comment

Get Social

Image Map

Affiliates

Green Moms Network
Influential Social Media Mom Blog Community
Ebates Coupons and Cash Back