Your baby's tongue doesn't cause friction, pinching, or compression during breastfeeding

Why baby's tongue isn't doing the damage (despite what you might hear)

It's not the tongue, but the high stretching forces that happen when there is breast tissue drag, which damage the skin (or epidermis) of the nipple.

Your little baby's tongue is moist. It's well lubricated by saliva and milk. It's muscular, able to change shape easily, which allows it to mould flexibly around the nipple and breast tissue which has been drawn up in the mouth. And your baby's tongue is covered with slippery mucous and saliva secretation.

You also don't need to worry about your baby's tongue's strength and endurance, the way you hear - unless your baby has medical condition, tongue strength and endurance are not relevant to breastfeeding. All the tongue has to do is drop in tandem with the jaw, nestling around the nipple and breast tissue, then follow the jaw back up.

The main functions of the tongue during breastfeeding are

1. To mould around and support the nipple and breast tissue

2. To create a warm, moist, soft and slippery cushioning (which I'll refer to as a sensory bath) around the nipple and breast tissue inside baby's mouth, which triggers oxytocin release and your milk ejection

3. To create a sensory bath around the nipple and breast tissue which triggers ongoing jaw drop in the baby

Saliva and mucous in baby's mouth (as well as breast milk) protect against friction burns of both baby's mouth and your nipple

When we think about it, it doesn’t make sense to say that nipple damage is caused by the rubbing of the baby’s tongue, although you'll often hear this said.

The baby’s mouth is moistened with copious amounts of saliva and mucous from birth, and, after a few days, by your breast milk too. The mucosa of the tongue slides with minimal friction against the mucosa covering the inner cheeks, palate, and gums

A burn or graze caused by tongue friction would look quite different to the cracks and ulcers that characterise nipple damage. They would be broader, less specific, and would occur under the nipple (depending on the angle your baby is breastfeeding from), but not in the locations where cracks and ulcers form.

Cracks are often at the base of the nipple, as well as on the face. Nipple cracks or fissures are quite different to friction burns!

• You can find out what's actually causing nipple pain or damage here.

• You can find out more about the terribly misunderstand baby tongue here.

• You can find out about tongue-tie here.

• A more detailed analysis of the research showing that your baby's tongue is not responsible for nipple and areola pain and damage is here.

The picture at the top of this page shows a baby who is positioned in a very unstable way at the breast, with his little lower arm stuck between the mother's body and his body, and his chest and tummy will be turning out away from his mother's body too. As a result he is on the breast asymmetrically, with lots of his lips visible - unfortunately a recipe for nipple and breast tissue drag (not to mention fussing at the breast), whcih results in nipple pain and damage.

References

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