Breastfeeding Woes & Tongue-Tied

After 6 weeks of painful breastfeeding, I visited Julie Johnson- an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) located in South Jordan. (IBCLC is the highest standard in professional breastfeeding management, and Julie's been certified since 2003 and has worked with thousands of clients!). She explained that if breastfeeding is still painful after 6 weeks then there must be an issue with the baby and her ability to latch. She did a thorough oral exam and diagnosed Auralia with a level 4 posterior tongue-tie. It's been such a relief to figure out why breastfeeding has continued to be so painful! I was getting so frustrated and even depressed at times about my inability to get breastfeeding to work; I was also in pain every time Auralia needed to eat and I found myself dreading feeding her.

So if any of you moms are still struggling with breastfeeding (or know someone who is), I'd highly recommend visiting Julie if you're in the Utah area! I went to a lactation "specialist" 2 days after Auralia was born. She was terrible! I left confused and overwhelmed and she completely missed that there was a problem-Auralia can't stick her tongue out past her bottom gumline! Many "lactation specialists" are people who have no certified training in breastfeeding and while they many be able to help some moms with learning basic breastfeeding techniques, there are the handful of moms who slip through the cracks because there are problems that these "specialists" can't solve and so they end up recommending supplementing.

The sad part of it all is that tongue-tie often goes undiagnosed and even when it is diagnosed, many health care professionals do not recognize it as a link to breastfeeding complications. The good news is that tongue-tie is easily fixed! For more information on tongue-tie, visit http://www.suite101.com/conten​t/diagnosing-tonguetie-in-a-br​eastfed-baby-a78730 and http://www.kellymom.com/babyco​ncerns/bfhelp-tonguetie.html. Also, Julie's website is http://www.mybirthangel.com/.