Tongue-tie is a birth defect that occurs in about 5% of newborns. Children with lingual frenulum often have an abnormally short and thick lingual frenulum, affecting tongue movements in daily activities. Children have difficulty getting their tongue out of their mouth or touching the upper palate, leading to poor feeding, difficulty feeding and possibly malnutrition.
During the stage of learning to speak, lingual frenum adhesion can cause speech disorders, slow speech, lisping of the sounds “t”, “l”, “ch”… In some cases, lingual frenulum adhesion can cause anterior incisors. Misaligned, gapped teeth… loss of aesthetics in the maxillofacial area, causing children to have low self-esteem when they grow up.
Cutting the tongue frenulum helps the tongue move freely, including many methods such as monopolar electric knife, bipolar electric knife… This procedure is often prescribed for young children (even those from two months old). , severe tongue frenum adhesion, poor tongue mobility, unable to stick tongue out, to the sides or tip of tongue up.
Tongue frenum adhesion is a simple procedure, not dangerous if the baby is fully examined, has a doctor’s prescription, is in good health, and has modern cutting methods.
Before minor surgery, the child is given pre-anesthesia and sleeps during the cutting so he does not feel pain, fear or psychological phobias. However, some other medical facilities still remove lingual frenum adhesions combined with local anesthesia. The baby’s tongue frenulum is removed while awake, so parents must know how to coordinate with the doctor, keep the baby still while the tongue is cut and not struggle.
The doctor at the Ear, Nose and Throat Center removed the tongue frenulum for the pediatric patient. Image: Hospital provided
If your child has been diagnosed with tongue tie, you should take him or her for surgery soon. At the Ear, Nose and Throat Center, Tam Anh General Hospital, doctors use a modern bipolar electric knife, capable of cutting, stopping bleeding on the spot, and limiting bleeding during surgery. Scalpels are used flexibly and accurately, limiting damage to healthy tissue, causing less pain and allowing children to recover faster. The possibility of tongue frenum adhesion or scar tissue after surgery is almost very low.
The process of cutting the tongue frenum takes about 10-15 minutes. The child can recover immediately after the procedure, be breastfed, eat light meals as usual and be discharged the same day.
After cutting, a white membrane may appear at the wound site, this is completely normal so parents do not need to worry too much. The wound usually heals completely after 7-10 days. For older children, parents should guide them to move their tongue by moving the tongue to the sides, moving the tongue up and down, curling the tongue… to improve the flexibility of the tongue.