It is with a heavy heart that I write this review. I wanted to bring awareness to a situation that happened to us today here, in hopes that it will be thought provoking to medical professionals on how they handle the babies entrusted in their care. (And perhaps bring caution to those considering bringing their babies to this doctor for tongue tie help.)
Today we went to the clinic to get breastfeeding help, and we had an injury that happened to our son there due to lack of informed consent and lack of gentle, respectful care. I wanted to share our experience today, especially for those of you who may also be experiencing a baby with tongue ties.
My 3 month old son who had a tongue tie revision at 5 weeks old, and we are still experiencing nursing issues and digestion issues with him. I was seeking advice by posting in an Arizona Tongue Tie Facebook group, since he was on a two week nursing strike, and I was coming to a loss at what to do. Dr. Cara (who had originally performed his… tongue tie revision.) reached out to me through one of her lactation consultants and invited us back for a free consultation to see how he’s nursing. I had been generously helped by this lactation consultant, and was very grateful for her help! She is so lovely and is always so great with our son! During our appointment today with her, she had Dr. Cara come in to watch him nurse. After watching for a second, she asked to look at his mouth. Within seconds of handing him over to her, she completed a very rushed, very deep stretch of his tongue. (I’m sure you tongue tie parents out there know the one I’m referring to!) I have never seen it done so roughly and which such lack of emotional consideration to the patient. We have had many lactation consultants and bodyworkers do the same stretch, and have never had it done to that intensity. My poor boy was screaming out in fear and pain, as the completely healed area ripped back open a little. And mind you, it had been healed for over two months! So it’s not like it was a freshly healed wound anymore. I can’t even imagine how much that must have hurt. My mama heart aches for him still. Dr. Cara then swiftly stopped, started bouncing and shushing him, and then gave him back to me asking that I latch him. My husband and I were outraged at this abrupt treatment of our son, and in such shock that we hardly knew what to say.
Of course in that moment, my hysterically screaming son, who was now bleeding from the mouth, (it literally ran down the back of my shoulder and I still have blood stains on my shirt and bra to prove it.) couldn’t latch on. I was so horrified at what had just happen, knowing that this would not help his nursing strike, and would just create more oral aversion which is what we were trying so hard to avoid in the first place! I came to Arizona Breastfeeding and Wellness to get help for my son. To try better positions for him, to try making him more comforted at the breast. To take a quick, gentle peek inside his mouth to make sure it had all healed correctly. (Which according to our sweet consultant, it had.) But instead our poor lactation consultant could hardly help us with nursing because my son was so traumatized after what Dr. Cara had done to him.
After my son wouldn’t calm down, Dr. Cara left the room to go call our bodyworker to discuss his abnormal eating patterns despite his normal looking mouth. So we were left with our consultant and a hysterical, traumatized baby in pain. He continued to struggle to latch on and receive comfort. It took a long time to get it to finally happen. It should be noted, that my son has a dairy/lactose allergy and so he could not be given any arnica for pain management since that is an ingredient in the homeopathic remedy. (And obviously he wasn’t offered anything before she did this to his healed tongue.)
The lactation consultant tried to help us best she could in the sad state we were in, Dr. Cara never came back into our room to follow up, and so we eventually wrapped it up and left. After leaving her office, we drove about 15 minutes and then decided that we needed to turn our car back around, and go back to request to speak with Dr. Cara and tell her that what she had done was harmful and unhelpful to our son. That we felt blindsided by her actions, and did not feel we received proper consent. And finally, that she needs to communicate and slow down before attempting something like that to any other child in the future. We were tired, so sad for our son and just wanted to get him back home. (We live almost an hour away from their office.) But we knew that the least we could do for our son was to bring to her attention how unacceptable his treatment today was. To speak up on his behalf, and hopefully prevent this from happening to other babies.
She did come speak with us upon our request. She did listen. She did apologize profusely for her actions and her mistake. It cannot possibly undo the trauma that happened to our son. However, we appreciate her genuine apology and the time they took to see us today. She explained that she would never purposely break open a wound like that without asking first, and that she hadn’t expected that it would do that. She said she stopped as soon as she saw that he was bleeding.
Although Dr. Cara claims she was not purposely trying to break the area back open, I’m not sure how she didn’t think that there wasn’t a possibility that it might happen. I have never seen my sons tongue be stretched so roughly, so deeply and with such a lack of communication to both him and to us. (Again mind you, we have seen many IBCLCS and bodyworkers who have done the same stretch themselves. Quite deeply in fact too! But never so aggressively as she did it. It took my breath away when it happened.) I honestly and truly wish I had it on video, because I think Dr. Cara would hav
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