10-minute op for tongue-tied baby; HEALTH: City doctors lead the way with simple procedure to help families.

Byline: Alison Dayani

PARENTS Nicola Wright and Simon Flint were lost for words when they found out their newborn baby was literally tongue-tied.

Tiny Austin Flint was perfect in every way, except for an extra piece of tissue anchoring the tip of his tongue to the floor of the mouth. This prevented him from sticking out his tongue or being able to breastfeed easily and could also have caused speech problems in the future.

But due to the efforts of consultant paediatric surgeons Charles Hendrickse and Douglas Bowley, Austin was able to have his tongue corrected within two weeks of birth at Good Hope Hospital, in Sutton Coldfield.

Mother Nicola, a 22-year-old midwife at Walsgrave Hospital, in Coventry, said: "It immediately made a noticeable difference. Austin could suddenly stick out his tongue and breastfeed happily. It was amazing to see. I was having to breastfeed for four to five hours every night as most of the milk was spilling out of his mouth."

It was during an examination after Austin's birth at Good Hope on June 22, that a midwife picked up on the problem. Two weeks later, Nicola and Simon, from Glascote, in Tamworth, were back for an outpatients' appointment to have Austin's tongue divided.

He is one of about 40 babies from across the country who are treated for the condition by the doctors at Good Hope and Heartlands hospitals in Birmingham every year. Many other trusts will not carry out the ten-minute procedure to cut the tissue and free the tongue.

Decades ago, it was routine for midwives to cut the tongue with a nail if they noticed it was tied after birth, but stricter health and safety rules stopped that practice, even though as many as one in ten babies may be born with tongue-tie.

"It's not an abnormality, just one of those things some children are born with," said Mr Bowley. "It used to be convention for midwives to divide the tongue, but that became frowned upon as not a real medical procedure but a cultural practice like circumcision, so it fell out of favour."

That position has now changed, with international charity Unicef and the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) supporting the procedure to boost breast-feeding, because the problem pre-ventbabies from attaching properly to the breast.

The consultant explained that a trial in Southampton had now found that tongue-tied babies were unable to breastfeed, with a 95 per cent improvement in newborns that had the tongue cut to untie it.

CAPTION(S):

Just perfect: Nicola Wright and Simon Flint with their son following the 10-minute procedure and (inset left), Austin soon after his birth. Main picture: Trevor Roberts