Heather Rae El Moussahas been candid about her breastfeeding journey, opening up this week about some of the challenges she’s faced throughout the experience.
TheSelling Sunsetstar, 34, shared onInstagramTuesday that she’d been having trouble nursing her newborn sonTristan, whom she welcomed on Jan. 31 with husbandTarek El Moussa, as the infant has hadtongue, cheek and lip ties, which causes difficulty latching during breastfeeding.
Speaking toDanielle Gauss, an international board-certified lactation consultant working with Heather, she tells PEOPLE what it means for someone to have oral tethering, how it can affect the breastfeeding process and what new parents should look out for.
Describing what it means to have oral tethering, Gauss first explains that everyone is born with a frenulum which is the “stringy part under our tongue.”
“It’s a collagenous fiber that connects from your tongue all the way down to your toe. It’s one giant unit,” she says. “It can cause so many difficulties, specifically when it comes to breastfeeding, such as slow weight gain, nipple damage, pain with breastfeeding, clogged ducts, etc.”
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And though the word “tie” is in the diagnosis, Gauss says a tongue, cheek, or lip tie doesn’t mean the tissue is “necessarily tied in a knot.”
“An anterior tie, it almost makes like a heart-shaped tongue where the babies or anyone, even adults who are tongue-tied can’t stick their tongue out past the gumline. Those are very visible,” she says. “With a posterior tie, you really can only feel it, but you can see that the tongue is tethered or tied to the floor of the mouth so the tongue can’t lift and curl.”
Gauss, who co-founded theTongue Tie Tribute, a CO2 laser frenectomy center for infants and adults in California, advises new moms to “trust their instincts” when it comes to noticing if something seems off when breastfeeding.
Heather Rae El Moussa/instagram, Tarek El Moussa/instagram
“Truthfully, with the new statistics that are coming out, about 75% of the population is walking around with some form of an oral tie. It’s whether or not it’s symptomatic,” she says.
Gauss explains that depending on the type of tie, there are different options available to help with the issue.
“If it’s a very visible anterior to the tip of the tongue, which most new moms even without any training or understanding can see, I would recommend getting a frenectomy, which is a CO2 laser release. It’s very quick and takes three seconds,” she says. “If it’s a posterior tongue tie, a lot of times I recommend doing some suck training exercises or some cranial sacral therapy stretches.”
source: people.com
