Tongue Tie in Toddlers – My own experience of Emma’s surgery.

Just last month Baby Emma turned One, last week she went into hospital to have surgery on her tongue tie.

I had searched the internet for details on how common Tongue Tie is in toddlers, and what to expect throughout the operation process, and my (normally pretty awesome) googling skills didn’t produce much result. So I am writing MY experience of Emma’s Tongue Tie.

When baby Emma was born, her tongue tie was never picked up. I remember the midwife popping her finger in her mouth when she was born, but no comment was ever made about a potential tongue tie. Tongue tie is actually pretty common in babies, and is easily fixable. Emma had no issues with her latch, she fed well and gained weight well, which is how I assume it was never picked up that there was a problem. In a lot of babies, it can cause feeding problems, which in turn can cause the baby to not gain weight in the way they should. This is easily rectified with a simple ‘snip’ of the tongue while the baby is awake. It is an instant cure, and although it might sound cruel, I wish Emma’s tongue tie had been picked up when she was young enough for this course of action.

I first noticed that Emma’s tongue was different at about 8 months old, she was baby-led weaned and had always coped with all foods well, it was only through a game of sticking tongues out at each other that I noticed she couldn’t. Her tongue was forked.

It is notoriously hard to get a picture of Emma’s tongue, as she couldn’t poke it out…but here is the best I could get.  That is as far as she could poke it out.

I went to the doctors who confirmed it was quite severe, and they referred her to the paediatric surgeons at our hospital. A month later and we had a consultation with a surgeon. He was fabulous, I felt completely relaxed with him. He explained everything, he didn’t rush me, he asked my concerns, and together we agreed that Emma would have the surgery. As she was approaching a year old, I was informed that she would have to have a general anaesthetic. She was too old just to be snipped, she would kick, scream and probably bite the surgeons with her super new sharp teethy pegs. Instead they would put her ‘under’, they explained it would mean she was out for about an hour, as they like to put them under slowly, and again wake them up slowly, to try and minimise any problems from the anaesthetic. The actual operation would be a laser cut of the skin under tongue which was attaching it. As it cuts, it burns the skins and seals it too.

I was told there was a 4 month wait for the surgery, but just after 6 weeks I had a call saying that a place had come up for the week after. I jumped at the chance, and despite the surgeon being lovely and helpful at the consultation, I couldn’t help but worry of a million questions, such as ‘Would she be OK with the general anaesthetic?’ and ‘ would it become sore after?’, ‘Would she be able to eat?’ and ‘Would it traumatise her?’.

The day of the surgery was looming, and the hospital sent full details of the fasting plan. I did plenty of research on this, why it was important and I made sure that she only had the drink she was allowed. We arrived at the day ward with her favourite blanket and comfy clothes, and she was so well behaved. The staff were incredible. They came over and explained everything, they put numbing cream on her hands and bandaged them up, and she didn’t even attempt to take them off, that surprised me massively. She was taken down to have the anaesthetic, but as she is so young they couldn’t find her vein easily to pop the cannula in, so she was unfortunately ‘gassed’, she didn’t fight once. It was then we were told to go get a cup of coffee, not to sit and wait. They told us to come back 45 minutes later, and not long after we were back we were told we could go see her in recovery.

I walked into recovery and there lay on a massive bed, was my baby daughter. She was on her front, bum in the air, like she does when she is asleep. There was a recovery nurse on each side of her and she just lay there awake but still. As soon as she saw me she jumped up and leapt into my arms, I shed a little tear of happiness. I was allowed to carry her out of recovery in my arms instead of being wheeled on the big bed. Immediately they encouraged her to drink, and she gulped down water. The ward nurses then made her some toast which she happily gulped down.

She was a little quiet, a little dozey but she was back and happy. We were given a syringe of special gel to put on the area where the operation was, but it turned out we only used it 4 times.

Within an hour Emma was sticking her ‘new tongue’ out, and it was huge! We had only ever seen her with her little tongue, all along she had been hiding this massive tongue!

The days that followed were up and down, she had problems settling for sleep, and would wake up crying. It might of just been badly timed as she was also teething and appeared to come out in a cold too. Her recovery for the tongue seemed to go fine, and as standard there is no follow up from the hospital. They do say if there is any concerns to pop to the GP. But so far, so good!