Tell me about lip ties and speech delays

[Katy]

The baby who's having trouble with consonants but who can clearly say, "Yay!" in the right context and says "Eh" when he clearly means yes was having fun flipping himself backwards on my legs today and I realized he has a definite upper lip tie. He's never let me get a good look under his tongue. He's newly adopted so he was always bottle fed, a good eater from a bottle but always had acid reflux. What do I need to know and what kind of specialist do I ask for to evaluate this?

[caedmyn]

From what I've read lip ties are usually accompanied by tongue ties and it's more likely that the tongue tie is causing speech issues than the lip tie.  If you do a search on posterior tongue ties and preferred providers you should be able to find someone in your area who does them.  It seemed to be mostly dentists on the group I was on.

[Katy]

Thanks.  There is a dentist near me that does handle this.

[Tiramisu]

I have two kids with tongue ties and got freaked out by a midwife who predicted speech problems would develop. Nothing like that ever happened. 

I think at least two of my kids also have a lip tie. I have a memory of the dentist pointing it out because it could cause a gap in the front top teeth. One's front teeth gap closed completely. The other's is so small that you can't really see it. She is the one who had a palate expander so that may have given her some extra room. 

My H had a lip tie and did not have speech problems but got it cut for other reasons. He does have a noticeable gap between his two front teeth. It's not huge but it's there.

[Tiramisu]

16 minutes ago, Arctic Mama said:

Yeah, the baby’s lip tie caused a gap between his baby teeth too.  It’s the potential rear submucousal tongue tie we are worried about.  He doesn’t have a lot of tongue mobility and that seems to be impacting his eating and speech sounds, on top of the cerebral palsy.  So we figure getting the ties taken care of at least eliminates one variable in that equation ?

When I consulted a SLP after my youngest was born, she said she would act immediately if it were affecting eating. She also had a child with these issues so understood it on a personal and professional level.