Frenectomies – Mansfield, TX
Effective, Gentle Treatment for Lip and Tongue Ties
It’s interesting how small things can have significant consequences. A small tissue in your baby’s mouth can create big problems for their growth. If your child has a lip or tongue tie, it can affect how well they breastfeed, how they speak, and how they develop. Fortunately, our team has the capability to give your baby better oral function through a procedure called a frenectomy, specifically a laser frenectomy. To learn more about this treatment, keep reading the content below and or reach out to our Mansfield office to schedule a consultation with us!
How Do Lip and Tongue Ties Develop?
During gestation, while the baby is still growing and forming, thick pieces of tissue (called a frenulum) connect the lips and tongue to the upper and lower teeth and the floor of the mouth. Most of the time, this tissue basically dissolves before the baby is born. However, some babies retain this tissue after birth, and it restricts movement and function, causing a lip or tongue tie.
Common symptoms of a lip or tongue include the following:
- Trouble latching
- Sore nipples
- Slow or low weight gain
- Excessive fussiness
For older children, symptoms may manifest differently:
- Difficulty eating solid foods (e.g., gagging or struggling with certain textures of food)
- Difficulty saying certain sounds.
Why is it Important to Treat Lip & Tongue Ties?
If your baby has a lip or tongue tie, they may not be able to breastfeed as they should. Normally, the tongue is raised to create a seal around the nipple so the baby can suck milk. However, if your baby cannot achieve this suction, they can fail to gain weight and thrive. Once the lip or tongue tie is resolved, your baby should be able to nurse correctly almost instantly.
Even if you bottle feed your baby, bypassing nursing problems, a tongue or lip tie can still interfere with your child’s growth, development, and health. For instance, your child may find it difficult to pronounce certain sounds like th, t, d, r, l, s, and z, hindering their speech progression and complicating communication with others.
Lip & Tongue Tie Treatment
Traditionally, lip and tongue ties are addressed using a scalpel and sutures. The tie would be severed and then any bleeding areas stitched up. As you might imagine, this method is often a painful process for little ones. However, at Broad Park Family Dentistry, we have a soft tissue laser, which enables us to release the lip or tongue tie in a gentler way. With the laser, we remove the thick tissue with little bleeding or discomfort. In fact, we may not need to use local anesthetic at all. If you are a nursing parent, you can begin nursing immediately after the procedure to soothe your baby, to help jumpstart the healing process, and to see improvement in their oral function.
