"Specialist breast feeding service"

I attended the specialist breastfeeding service at Ashfield Health and Wellbeing centre with my son when he was 10 weeks old for specialist breast feeding support due to issues with pain on feeding and poor weight gain. He was diagnosed with a posterior tongue tie which was felt to be causing this and was referred for ligation.

Unfortunately I was told that NUH only see babies through their tongue tie service until the age of 12 weeks and as the waiting times were long we would not have been seen before this cut of and would instead need referring to Sheffield Childrens hospital. This had the advantage there was no upper age limit to access the service however the wait time was still over 1 month.

I have found the community support and services for breast feeding really positive and helpful for me but this seems almost a waste if an issue is identified yet this cannot be addressed because wait times are too long and a 12 week old baby then becomes ‘too old’ to access a service. NUH is a tertiary children’s hospital with the expertise to manage complex and unwell children and so I doubt that a simple procedure such as this ligation couldn’t be performed past 12 weeks.

Fortunately for me I was able to pay privately to have this procedure done for my son, and since then he is feeding better, has better weight gain and overall has less symptoms likely as a result of his tongue tie release. I am aware though that not everyone is in a financial position to be able to do this, and had I not been able to I am sure I would not still be breast feeding. I strongly feel that this service should be more accessible for everyone and reducing waiting times and increasing the upper age limit babies can be seen through this service is so important.