Abstract
The problems of suction in newborns give rise to multiple consequences for both the mother and the newborn. The objective of this paper is to present a case of ankyloglossia (“tongue-tie”) and the suction problems that were treated by a multidisciplinary team. The subject is a 17-day-old male patient, with ankyloglossia and suction problems during breastfeeding (pain in the breastfeeding mother, poor weight gain, and long breastfeeds). The patient followed the circuit established in our centre between the services of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery and Breastfeeding and Speech Therapy and Orofacial Rehabilitation (CELERE). The evolution following the breastfeeding sessions, the myofunctional stimulation, and the lingual frenotomy was very favourable, thereby solving the suction problems that the newborn presented. All our patients receive breastfeeding sessions and myofunctional therapy as treatment. We know that a frenotomy is not always necessary and we believe that the stimulation of sucking before and after the surgical intervention is important in order to improve the final result.
Highlights
Newborns can have breastfeeding difficulties for many reasons, for example, their immaturity, and on other occasions, it is caused by the premature separation of mother and child due to the hospitalisation of either or because the baby has lost its sucking reflex
Around 3% of infants are born with a short lingual frenulum which can lead to breastfeeding problems [6, 8, 9]
The lingual frenulum is a fibromucous membrane that joins the base of the tongue with the floor of the mouth, and when it is short and restricts movement, we term this ankyloglossia or tongue-tie
Summary
Newborns can have breastfeeding difficulties for many reasons, for example, their immaturity (preterm infants, before 37 weeks), and on other occasions, it is caused by the premature separation of mother and child due to the hospitalisation of either or because the baby has lost its sucking reflex. The lingual frenulum is a fibromucous membrane that joins the base of the tongue with the floor of the mouth, and when it is short and restricts movement, we term this ankyloglossia or tongue-tie. It consists of the remains of embryonic tissue, produced in the early stages of the development of the oral cavity. An incorrect division of the genioglossus and hypoglossal muscles is considered [4, 8, 10,11,12]
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