Tongue tie symptoms

Baby symptom #2- two tone or blistered lips

What does it mean when baby has lip blisters? You may have heard they are just “milk blisters” nothing to worry about and don’t mean anything.

First that doesn’t even make sense. If you have a blister, there is a cause. I’ve had a blister with new shoes, or even old shoes but I didn’t wear socks one day. So friction happened, my skin got irritated and a blister formed.

Why and how would baby have lip blisters? And what is two tone lips? If you look at baby’s lips and they are two different colors, a brighter pink and a light peachy pink, that’s two tone lips. Why does this happen- same as my shoes- friction.

Baby is using their lips (and usually their cheeks too) VERY intensely to hold onto the breast, or bottle, for dear life. Think about drinking a too thick milkshake through a straw- you would use your lips to hold on tight and suck really hard. Essentially that is what baby is doing to the breast- holding on really tight with lips, and frequently with cheeks too, and sucking very hard.

You can imagine this isn’t very comfortable. For mom or baby. It’s also a very important sign, literally a bright pink sign from baby’s body saying “look at me!!”. Baby’s body is telling us that feeding is really hard. The next step would be doing a full oral and feeding assessment.

This assessment should include feeding, and that makes an IBCLC the only person to do the assessment. Then together with that IBCLC, you make a plan for how to address baby’s tongue tie. There are usually multiple steps. Frequently, but not always, a tongue tie release, or frenectomy, is necessary. However there are CRUCIAL steps BEFORE the frenectomy. That’s why you want to work with an IBCLC who is also a tongue tie expert.

Questions about two-tone lips or tongue tie? Comment below or reach out today.