How babies breastfeed: the biomechanics of infant suck (short animation)

What is a frenotomy?

A frenotomy is a cut into the mucosa and connective tissue under your baby's tongue, performed with the aim of improving your baby's tongue mobility.

When is a frenotomy helpful?

Classic tongue-tie is not defined, and may never be defined through measurements. None of the tools that are commonly used by health professionals to screen for the diagnosis of tongue-tie or ankyloglossia have been shown to reliably help make the diagnosis.

I suspect, like many other diagnoses in medicine, the decision to diagnose tongue-tie or ankyloglossia will always be a clinical judgement, made by a clinician who integrates dozens or even hundreds of pieces of small information to weight up the potential benefits versus risks of frenotomy. The clinician does this through careful history taking, examination, and breastfeeding assessment.

It is important, however, to remember that many babies have visible anterior membranes running along the undersurfaces of their tongues....