A NEW clinic has launched at Barnsley Hospital in order to support tongue-tied babies and their parents.
The condition can restrict the tongue’s movement and make it harder to breastfeed, leading to some babies not gaining the weight they need.
Before the clinic was launched in May – which will allow babies born at Barnsley Hospital to be seen quicker and closer to home – babies were referred to other hospitals with long waiting lists.
A tongue-tie occurs when the strip of skin connecting the tongue to the bottom of the mouth is shorter than usual.
It affects about ten per cent of newborn babies in the UK, but often only becomes apparent when breastfeeding proves challenging.
The clinic is the result of four years’ hard work by Sarah Beardsall, infant feeding co-ordinator, and her team – infant feeding support workers Leah Crompton and Jade Armitage and midwife Sarah Williams.
“The ethos of the new clinic is infant feeding support and that’s an integral part of this service.
“It’s from the beginning, the middle, to the end.
“The main thing I wanted was to make sure we provided infant feeding support for all those babies with tongue-ties and restrictions, to make sure they’d got the proper support prior to having that assessment, and after the division.
“The more women that we can support, the more that’s going to increase our breastfeeding rates hopefully within the borough.
“From the telephone triage, most women we are being able to see within a week.
“The longest wait we’ve had is about three weeks, which is absolutely amazing.”
