“Ties” and breastfeeding success skepticism
Does anyone else have the opinion that “ties” such as lip ties, tongue ties, and buccal ties are something that are brought up so much, it feels uncertain if it’s even real? For context, my LO is 12 weeks old, and in the beginning, breastfeeding was not going so well. Baby lost weight in the hospital, latching was unbearably painful, even baby was so fussy and refusing the breast, we saw outpatient lactation and finally got her nursing at the breast (although exclusively with a nipple shield) at 3 weeks old. Now, she is taking all of her feeds at the breast, with no nipple shield or latching pain.
At about a week old, an IBCLC told us basically that our LO has a “posterior tongue tie” and a “lip tie” and pretty much that we would not have success breastfeeding unless we release said ties, and that if not it may affect many other aspects of our babies life down the road. We ended up not going through with any release and feel thankful that we did not because things got so much better with time.
I’m saying this to say, does anyone else feel tired of all this talk about these “ties”? Don’t get me wrong, I understand that tongue ties absolutely exist and can affect babies and parents in many ways. At the same time, from what I understand, there is no medical consensus that lip and buccal ties are either a real diagnosis or something that needs to be released to improve breastfeeding outcomes. For example, if I were to get my babies said ties released, and observed a vast difference in breastfeeding, not knowing that things may have improved on their own without a release, wouldn’t that further the idea that these releases are necessary?
I hope what I’m trying to say makes sense. I’d love to hear if any other parents have similar stories or opinions.