The Truth About Tongue Tie Treatment with Lisa Paladino | 153

Good morning, lovely mamas. I am really excited to introduce today's guest. She's been on here before and I am very close to her. Today we have Lisa Paladino, the Tongue Tie Expert slash. Midwife, labor and delivery nurse, lactation, all the things. So Lisa, go ahead and introduce yourself.

Lisa: Sure. Trish, first, thank you so much for having me back again.

We had a blast last time and I'm sure today will be no different. I love speaking to mamas and I love speaking about my favorite topic, which Lately has been tongue tie and it's been a pretty long path to get to this place. And the short story is I was a labor and delivery nurse for over 25 years.

We were a little backwards at the time. So I, I really took that responsibility seriously, learned everything I could. And then, more and more mamas would come to me with complaints about tongue tie or what I didn't know was tongue tie at the time. What seemed like insolvable problems using all my other lactation tools.

So I took a deep dive into learning about tongue ties, joined all the professional organizations, went to all the conferences, read all the research that was out there, shadowed leaders in the field. And before I knew it, I was being considered the expert in tongue tie in my area. So, and, and, and,

Trish: and all over, don't, don't be modest.

Yeah, yeah.

Because I think everybody deserves, you know, holistic care on this topic and making sure they're getting the right, the right plan for them and their baby, you know?

Trish: And I, I love this. And as you're talking and, and, you know, Lisa is inside of my coaching mastermind. And so I spend a lot of time with her.

But what really blows me away, there's a couple of things. And today we're going to talk about some of the myths and some of the weird things that surround tongue tie. And we're going to bust some of those myths. One thing, and I'm sure you'll at some point address this where it will click in my head as well.

Oh, it's a nipple issue. Oh, it's a this. And now I have to wonder like, Did one of my babies have this issue?

Lisa: Yeah. So,

Trish: I'd love to hear from you. Just riff about, like, what you see that's false, these myths, and what do you think is happening in this area with moms who go to get help?

Yeah. First, I, I wanna just address what you said.

In this country was not encouraged to breastfeed. So we lost a couple of generations of breastfeeding families, and we lost the village to help each other. And the medical system forgot how, or didn't learn how to support breastfeeding babies. So if, if it didn't work out, their motto was, well, formula is just as good.

Now, number one, this isn't just a breastfeeding problem. This can affect bottle feeding and right, which makes so much sense. But most babies who have a tongue tie or a lip tie, that's especially the lip tie can do a little bit better on the bottle than the breast, or at least mom doesn't have pain. And she can figure out how to get milk into the baby, which is the ultimate goal, right?

We'll, we'll talk about that too. The myths and the facts, right? It's not good for everybody who thinks they're having a problem to think they need to have a tongue tie procedure.

Trish: Yeah. I think that we saw the same thing with the, milk, soy, dairy allergy

that a lot of people were

self diagnosing.

Lisa: Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, in anything, especially now with social media and you know, I have a large presence on social media and I know that I help a lot of people, but there's also a lot of people who don't. Of a lot of not actually factual, social media. And there are, you know, my daughter was just telling me this morning, there's an influencer.

One of the myths, right? You need to, right? So, there is a lot of that, those influences out there and saying, this is what I did. And if you're of that age where you're, you love these people who you see every day, you're going to think that what they're saying is absolute fact, when it may not be, it may not be the best process.

Yeah, we

Right. People are like, oh, they believe they're so right. They must be right. And that is a really scary, especially for you and I who are older Yeah. Who have been in this, you know, in our fields for so long. I know there's no way I could have taught childbirth effectively after just a few years. Right. In childbirth, I needed my 16 years.

I needed that to understand. So, I, I'm so glad we're talking about this.

Lisa: Yeah, I think discernment is important. Discernment. You know, and I think that comes with our wisdom years. You know, I'm, I'm older than you are, Trish. I just turned 60. And, and I wear that well. I wear that badge proudly. I'm not afraid to get old.

Old quote unquote because I love the way I feel now and I love how I know things in a way I didn't know when I was younger. Oh, Steve and I were

Because we're so much wiser now.

Lisa: Yeah, it's just incredible. Every year I feel more confident in myself. And this is a message for the younger women listening. You know, it doesn't get worse. It gets better. You know, it just keeps getting better. You just have to, you know, keep finding your path and it gets easier, especially from those, those newborn stages and those crazy young kids.

I raised seven kids. I at one point had seven kids under eight, you know, so I know how hard it can be

Trish: Lord have mercy. Yeah Yeah, it was

There are two different camps There is the camp of there should never be a tongue tie diagnosed. It's diagnosed too often And we should just wait for it to grow out or stretch or in the case of a lip tie we we expect the The baby will someday fall and it will cut on its own, which is horrendous. Have you heard that?

No! Yes, yes. Don't worry. One day they'll fall and they'll cut their lip and it'll, it'll, it'll be released on its own. So in what other medical field do we hope that there's an injury to correct it? You

Trish: mean that's coming from medical professionals? Yes! Yes! I thought you meant from the internet.

Lisa: No! From medical professionals.

And Neither is true, or both are true, but they're somewhere in the middle, right? So, not everyone who looks like they have a tongue tie needs a surgical procedure. That's, that's the number one thing. We all have phrenum, and the phrenum is the actual tie, the tissue under the tongue or under the lip that we see that looks like it's holding things in place.

That's called a phrenum. And we should have those. We have those. We all have those or our mouths would be falling open. It would be difficult. We have phrenum all over our body, but we can have phrenum here in the upper lip, the bottom lip, on the, in the cheeks, up and down and under the tongue. The problem is when the phrenum prevents functional movement.

So if the function is breastfeeding, And you think your baby has a tongue tie, you're having trouble breastfeeding, you should see a breastfeeding expert, an IBCLC if possible, to help you figure out what is going on with your breastfeeding to make sure it's nothing else than the tongue tie. Because sometimes it looks like the tongue is restricted, but it's not the tongue tie causing the problem.

Not everybody knows how to do this right. So

Trish: that is something I'm interested in. How do these moms know who is the right provider? How did they find that out?

Lisa: So I came on this dilemma over and over again. So I created a handout. A download. I use it as a hand handout in my office. And can we put that in the

Trish: show notes?

Yes.

Which would

Trish: probably be a better healing process.

Lisa: Yes, better everything, right? It's gentler. But you also, I mean, anybody could buy the laser. We want to say, well, is this a big part of your practice? You don't want to go to someone that says, oh yeah, I do like one a week. You want to go to someone, if you can, that this is their practice.

Yeah, an osteopath, perineal sacral therapist, and not everyone needs all of these things. But you want to go to a dentist or a doctor who has a network of professionals because that means he gets it. He knows this is a whole body experience. He knows that you need guidance with lactation. He knows that your baby may need body work afterwards or before to get ready.

He understands that this may not be a quick snip and it's all better.

You don't need to do all those things. It's not true, right? It sometimes it is Sometimes it is, if you're lucky, it is. But, but should that provider be the one telling you that, or should you have them evaluated by someone else?

If somebody told me that, I would say run the other way, right? Because they don't know

Trish: your situation

Lisa: yet.

Right. The people that work in this community, the people who know what they're doing when it comes to tongue tie care, Work in community, work in networks, work in what we call time. So they would never say that. They would never say that. Now, I have to be honest, there, you may be a mom who's in a geographic location where there is nobody.

And, but the great thing is that these, this is growing, right? So more and more people are having access like this. On my website, I have a list of people who've taken my professional course. So professionals who have been trained by me. And we'll link to that

Trish: as well.

Lisa: Yeah, so it's, it's just a professional referral list.

I don't make any guarantees on their qualifications other than they've been taught what I know. I've taught them what I know. So, that's a hint. The other thing is you can ask in, in different, like I like to say crunchy mama groups, you know, ask in your local, you know, for us we had Staten Island Moms Breastfeeding Group.

Don't be afraid to ask those important questions because it's, you know, I love that consumers drive. for medical professionals, dental professionals, professionals like lactation birth professionals. We should, those of us doing the good work should be the ones that are having people come to us, not the people that are doing half.

Whatever work. I won't curse. I know you don't like cursing. It's not that I don't

What would I say to my grandson is Poopy headed people, you know, like, we, we, I tzu, and when he's not around, I call him my little shit, and when my grandson's here, I'm like, my little poopy!

Trish: Yeah, nice, yeah, we're okay with some swear words, it's just the big ones, I say fudge, I don't say the other one. So yeah, so you want,

Lisa: you want to get good recommendations. You want to, if you cannot find someone that's close to you, there are plenty of online courses, just like you have an online course. I have an online course for parents.

Like, but this because it is a medical procedure that we started doing more, I don't know, modern in a modern fashion. only about 20, 25 years ago, it's still evolving. And what I did 10 years ago is different than what I recommend. Now it's different than five years ago, as far as exercises, what we do in the wounds, pain management, all of the things are different.

So, yeah, so I, I definitely feel like you want to find a provider and find support that's up to date. Right.

You had to do some other nursing and I always say it was so good for me. Because you can recognize sick. Yes. You can see these signs. Yes. A lot of these new nurses who have only done birth cannot recognize something outside of birth.

Lisa: Yeah. Do you know the first, I, I had to go from the medical floor to the postpartum floor and then to labor and delivery.

They wouldn't even take me straight from medicine. It was very hard where I worked to get where I wanted to be. I knew I wanted to be in labor and delivery. Yeah. So, But I once saved a woman's life who was severely hypoglycemic. She was a gestational diabetic. She was on the postpartum floor and nobody else recognized the signs of low blood sugar.

Nice. I was like, and she was like, my, my, husband said, your family knows you. My, you mean? And I was like. Oh my goodness. And I said, wait, your mom, what? And this woman was such a severe diabetic. She's since passed. But you know, I was like, that was your mother in law. She's like, yeah. And you know, I told her the story and she's like, I know.

Yeah. Yeah. So yes. So we learn and we learn to write what's going on. Yeah. That's okay. But you and I can talk forever as we know. So

Lisa: I would say is.

And this goes along with don't let it just get dismissed. Follow your instincts. Always, right? I think that motherhood is all about instincts and following your instincts. Follow your instincts. If you really feel like you're doing everything and the problem is this baby's tongue tie and nobody is listening to you or your pediatrician says it's not a tongue tie, this is terrible.

Don't listen to them. Listen to, listen to that little voice inside of you. And say to yourself or to this doctor, him or her, if it's not tongue tie, why do you think my baby can't breastfeed , painlessly and effectively? Okay.

Yeah. So this episode is more for those of you that either You know already know or you're dealing with this in some way Like we just want to bust some of the things that are said over and over again I feel like tongue tie is one of the areas pelvic floor issues is another area in this perinatal experience Where nutrition?

Yeah where women are

Lisa: dismissed. Yeah Absolutely And you know why trish and this is one of the things that's that's very important For everyone to understand. We don't learn about this in school. You said you didn't recognize this when you were having your own babies and the doctors and nurses didn't recognize it either because we don't learn about tongue tie in school.

This isn't a conspiracy theory. There are people who make a lot of money for moms, not breastfeeding, and they're suspicious of people who are making money to help moms breastfeed. Right? So we have to recognize that. And like I said, this is not conspiracy theory. This is lots of experience. Working in the hospital and being told I couldn't make my hospital a baby friendly hospital Because the formula company was helping to fund the new nursery that do you

Trish: remember that?

But do you remember the like meals and parties and gifts we used to get from the formula companies?

Lisa: Yep cookies once a week.

Trish: Yeah

And then they would talk about breastfeeding, like, oh, that would be nice and learn. Yeah. But it was like, wait, really? You know, it didn't make any sense what they said. So anyway, It would have a little bit of fact and then it would digress. And you'd be like, if this is all I learned about breastfeeding, I wouldn't be able to help anybody.

I am cause I'm a midwife and a nurse as well, but most lactation consultants or many of them are not licensed medical professionals. So they're not respected in the medical field. So You're coming to your pediatrician with your baby saying I saw this person on the internet talking about tongue tie I think that might be my baby and the lactation consultant said yes Your baby has a tongue tie and your pediatricians like first of all, what the heck is a tongue tie?

I didn't learn that in school All I learned is a heart shaped tongue that may affect speech when they get older Number two, who are these knuckleheads telling you this and why would you believe anything on the internet? That's what you're gonna hear and I can tell you horror stories and I'm sure people in our audience have real horror stories about babies who went on to need feeding tubes.

Trish: I wanna, I wanna ask you a question, cause I, I know we're gonna wrap up here in a minute.

And, and maybe there's no answer to this, but I think there might be. What are some, okay, so let's say we have a different scenarios of moms who are having specific problems with their babies. So let's say failure to thrive or whatever. What are some areas where , like you hear, these moms are being told A, B and C, but we need to investigate tongue tie.

Like what are some of these moms, like their doc, the pediatrician has said, it's blank.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Anytime a baby cannot latch or the latch is painful tongue tie should be explored. But the other big one is reflux, right? A lot of babies are being diagnosed. Yeah, diagnosed with reflux when it could be fixed with a tongue tie release the other thing and I just did a whole episode on this, on the Tongue Tie Experts podcast.

What, do you know what episode number is it? Is it out already? Well, we'll put it in,

Trish: we'll put it in the show notes. Yeah, yeah,

Lisa: yeah. It's about thrush or white tongue, right? So, so many babies are being misdiagnosed with thrush.

Trish: I'm literally wanting to run out of here to my membership right now because I have a couple moms who keep getting thrush, the babies.

Right.

Trish: it as thrush.

Lisa: So if you have had repetitive, if your baby has thrush that won't go away, meaning you keep seeing that tongue being white. You keep seeing that tongue being white. It might not be. It might not be thrush. And so then we're

Trish: treating them with antifungals unnecessarily. Yes.

Lisa: Now I'm not saying that it's never thrush.

There's a lot of tension in that baby's body, right? And we want to see is that tension under the tongue too. And, I usually like, a colicky baby, I usually like to start with some body work, some perennial sacral or some, chiropractic or whatever's available to you as far as body work. You know, to calm that baby's nervous system down, lots of skin to skin, lots of time in dark and calm areas, take a bath with the baby.

But most of the time when newborns cry, it's for hunger, almost always. So if your baby is crying a lot, they may not be getting enough from the breast. So that doesn't mean we need to give a bottle. It means we need to evaluate why they're not getting enough from the breast. And the root cause of that could be tongue tie.

Cause what I've noticed with the moms who their babies have been diagnosed, now they're going to all these different modalities and they're having to get this and that, and it's overwhelming for them. So what is, what's some advice you would give these moms?

Lisa: So I would, my best advice is to keep control over your own ecosystem.

And if that's going on for you, forgive yourself, forgive your baby, and accept where you are together. So I want everyone to not feel the pressure of, valuing themselves by their breastfeeding relationship. Every breastfeeding relationship will be different and you may not get where you thought you were going to be.

And that's okay, right? I like to say any breast milk is better than no breast milk. This sounds like I'm talking to people who aren't going to be successful, but I think those are the people that need the most love around them because in the social media world that we're talking about, we see a lot of Glorification of the perfect world, and it's not like that.

fed and you also feel a lot of guilt and grief and shame and all the things and acknowledging those feelings and working through them is really important. Motherhood is hard and it's It always has some layer of heart, right? We both have adult children, and that's a different layer of heart.

But God made us pretty darn strong.

Always, you'll always say, well, if I only did this and if I only did that, and that's what I'm saying about, like, forgive yourself, like have some self compassion because there's no way you can be perfect. You can only do your best for this baby in this moment. You know, and I know this is supposed to be about tongue tie, but it's so much bigger than the phrenum under the tongue.

This is about how we experience motherhood. And, you know, I've been digging deeper into the experience of this from the mom's point of view, and I'm teaching other professionals to not just think about the tongue tie to realize that every mom has her own experience. She's going through a lot, whether it be pain, milk supply.

And. not feeling good, bleeding your guts out, you know, having pain, not being able to sit from either your section or your, or your vaginal birth or your hemorrhoids. And you're hungry. You're more hungry than you've ever been in your life, but you have no energy to cook and family demands and all the things right.

That are coming on you. And now. You have this baby and the baby won't eat. So it's really, really, really important for providers to be gentle on the mom, but also for moms. I love that. Thank

Trish: you so much for coming. And I, this is such an important topic. And for those of you guys who are inside the membership, Lisa is going to be coming and doing a workshop and I know me neither, because this is.

So thank you again so much for coming. For those of you guys listening, I'm going to have a bunch of links in the show notes and you can find Lisa as the tongue tie expert on all the social medias. I don't know. Are we on TikTok? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So it's sort of me. Yeah. Who knows if TikTok will exist. All right, ladies.

Thank you so much, Lisa.

Everything is in the show notes. And if you love today's discussion, be sure to describe to the Birth Experience of Labor Nurse Mama for more expert interviews, myth busting episodes, and real talk about everything pregnancy. Postpartum, motherhood, baby. And if you found this episode helpful, share it with a friend.

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