Doctors in the US are urging families to partially cut off their babies’ tongues to make breastfeeding easier, a study warns.
A laser, called “tongue-tie surgery,” is used to burn away excess skin under the tongue, or the tissue that connects the lips and cheeks.
It is intended for use in infants with a genuine defect that prevents them from feeding properly. However, doctors have become increasingly liberal in prescribing it, even though about 60 percent of babies recover without surgery.
The number of surgeries performed increased 800 percent between 1997 and 2012, from about 1,280 procedures to more than 12,000, with doctors and lactation consultants raking in millions of dollars annually.
In some cases, the procedure causes severe, persistent pain and feeding difficulties in babies, leading to malnutrition that may require connection to feeding tubes.
Melanie Henstrom, an Idaho-based lactation consultant, has received several complaints from families to whom she recommended tongue-tie surgery, whose babies eventually became unable to breastfeed or eat solid foods, leading to extreme malnutrition .
Dentists performing the procedure usually use a laser to cut away the excess skin that connects the tongue to the floor of the mouth
A number of doctors told a New York Times investigation that it was a money grab by dentists and lactation consultants who had very little government oversight.
During tongue-tie release surgery—a condition in which an unusually short, thick, or tight band of tissue attaches the underside of the tip of the tongue to the floor of the mouth—this band of tissue is removed with a laser.
It has become a niche industry, earning dentists in some cases millions of dollars a year, to perform quick procedures on babies for about $600 to $900 each to make breastfeeding easier.
Money is also passed on to lactation consultants who refer parents to doctors.
One of those lactation consultants is Melanie Henstrom of Idaho, who, according to the New York Times, has received several complaints from her clients and medical professionals for aggressively pushing the procedure, which is not always medically necessary.
The International Board of Lactation Consultant Examiners has received at least three complaints about Ms. Henstrom since 2020, including one from pediatric physical therapist Kelly Strickland, who said: “I was referred to parents who were sick who came in for follow-up care and .” “It was traumatic that she pushed so hard against her baby’s mouth.”
Ms Henstrom is known to have recommended the procedure to mothers on Facebook without ever seeing the babies in person, and is believed to have worsened the babies’ pain by digging around in their mouths and increasing pressure on the surgical site.
She also encouraged parents to fear that without the surgery, their babies would never breastfeed or eat solid food again.
However, in reality, the procedure can cause a baby to lose the ability to express breast milk with the tongue and eat solid food.
Ms. Henstrom convinced Idaho resident Tess Merrell to book newborn Eleanor for tongue-tie surgery. Later, Eleanor refused to eat and became dangerously dehydrated. She spent her first Christmas with a feeding tube
In one case, Ms. Henstrom recommended the procedure through a Facebook post from a mother from Boise, Idaho, named Tess Merrell, even though a pediatrician, physical therapist and lactation consultant insisted that tongue-tying was not the cause of her difficulties in giving birth to her baby. bring a comfortable drink. .
Ms Merrell’s baby underwent the procedure and was soon left malnourished and dehydrated.
Ms Merrell, a high school football coach, said: “It was touted as a panacea.
“Afterwards we felt very stupid for paying to hurt our baby.”
The doctor who performed the procedure, Dr. Joel Whitt, maintained that Merrell’s experience was the only bad outcome of the approximately 800 operations he performed.
It is also known that Ms. Henstrom referred patients exclusively to a dentist named Samuel Zink. During procedures in which dr. Zink cut babies’ mouths with a laser, and Ms. Henstrom held the babies while he performed the surgeries.
The New York Times investigation uncovered a slew of reports of mothers whose babies were placed on feeding tubes after losing alarming amounts of weight.
A Montana mother who registered her baby for the procedure in November 2022 reported that her baby lost his ability to nurse and his weight dropped from the 97th to the 15th percentile in just three months.
In Delaware, a pediatric ear, nose and throat doctor said she recently treated an 11-day-old baby who was hospitalized after the procedure for severe weight loss.
Between four and eleven percent of babies are born with excess tissue connecting the tip of their tongue to the bottom of their mouth. However, many doctors say the condition is harmless and that evidence to support nutritional claims is limited.
A notable 2017 analysis looked at five different studies with a total of 302 subjects to measure how well babies breastfed after tongue-tie surgery. However, the researchers behind the study had major reservations, including the fact that the sample size was small and only two were double-blind.
“I couldn’t breastfeed”: About one in five babies are born tongue-tied
Babies with ties tend to have a heart-shaped tongue because the center is pulled inward by the short frenulum. Signs of the condition in newborns include snoring and clicking while breastfeeding because they cannot latch on properly.
According to the analysis published in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, none of the studies showed any long-term benefit for a baby’s ability to breastfeed.
The researchers concluded: “Previous studies have not answered the clinically relevant question.” [surgery] leads to long-term successful breastfeeding and relief of maternal pain in babies with oral restriction and breastfeeding difficulties.”
“Only one study examined frenotomy in infants diagnosed with moderate tongue fracture and found that frenotomy had no objective effect on infant feeding or on maternal nipple pain, but was subjectively effective.”
Doctors are sounding the alarm about the increasing number of procedures they consider medically unnecessary.
For example, Kentucky-based Pediatric Associates warned parents last year about the growing number of dentists offering laser surgery “at very high prices,” adding, “We’ve seen babies in severe pain after this procedure, which sometimes leads to oral surgery.” (rejection).” . Eat) ).’
The boom in baby food production lasted from the late 19th century until the 1960s, before breastfeeding again became the preferred method of feeding babies.
In 1977, a survey of American mothers found that two out of five mothers were breastfeeding their babies, a doubling from fifteen years earlier, largely due to women’s growing belief that breastfeeding provided their babies with a natural and healthier diet. to important nutrients for birth.
Source link
Crystal Leahy is an author and health journalist who writes for The Fashion Vibes. With a background in health and wellness, Crystal has a passion for helping people live their best lives through healthy habits and lifestyles.
