While we were chatting with our new doula friends today, a couple of interesting topics came up. This is the first one I had absolutely never heard of--apparently, tongue frenulums can make breastfeeding a horrible, painful task if they're too long or attachy. Check out this kid's under-tongue.
..And I really meant horrible and painful for mom. If the baby can't stick it's tongue out enough, it can't latch on properly, and things don't go well. It's called a "tongue tie", and it needs to be zapped with a laser, as it can also cause speech issues later on. Baby naturally gets spooked and screams for a minute, but everyone is much happier once it's feeding time again--which can be pretty much immediately after the procedure.
Guess what? Frank had one of these, and they're hereditary.
It's very common for these to go undiagnosed, but I will be hawk-eyeing that baby's tongue flap as soon as I stop crying from happiness. Let the research continue!
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