My comments to an article in Forbes by Dr. Nina Shapiro called Tongue Tie Surgery For Infants May Be Overused.
I am grateful that Dr. Shapiro and my fellow pediatric ENT colleagues are speaking up and increasing awareness of the excessive referrals and misinformation about “lip tie” and/or “tongue tie” especially as the scapegoat for nursing and breastfeeding difficulties early in infancy.
While there are definitely true indications and benefits for the release of a tongue tie, much rarely for an upper lip tie, it is critical that those who refer patients due to some erroneous information, and create expectations and pressures on mothers and families to get a “tie” cut, are made aware.
So for primary care physicians, pediatricians, lactation specialists, and speech language pathologists, and other feeding therapist such as occupational therapists, I sincerely hope you have a chance to share in our dialogueand minimize unnecessary referrals, and worse, treatments in children that are not medically warranted, justified, nor helpful while either underutilizing noninvasive but helpful treatments to improve and support breastfeeding success.
Here are my recent blogs on this topic: