During an international symposium in the Danish capital Copenhagen, a great deal of attention was paid to the correction of too short tongue ties. Berry Verlinden from OMFT.eu, one of the speakers at this symposium, also paid attention to this topic. The symposium highlighted various mouth problems and the impact this has on health, such as teeth, swallowing, sleeping, eating and eating.
Mulitidisciplinary approach
When a child has problems that can be traced to the mouth, there is not always a correct diagnosis. Midwives, (dental) doctors, orthodontists and other experts, view the problems and the consequences mostly from their own areas of expertise. A multidisciplinary approach is desirable because mouth-related problems can be complex and comprehensive. During the international symposium ‘Mouth problems leading to dental problems, failure to thrive and/or nutrition and eating difficulties’, specialists from different disciplines gave their vision on mouth problems: speech therapists, dentists, orthodontists, ENT specialists, occupational therapists, oro-facial therapists, osteopaths and physiotherapists.
Correction of the lingual frenum
There was a lot of attention for the tongue tie: indications for surgical correction and the reasons for correction. Kirsten Slagter, co-owner of a tongue tie clinic in The Netherlands, gave two presentations on this issue. In the Netherlands, dentists and, to a lesser extent, ENT surgeons are increasingly looking for a surgical correction of a too short tongue tie at the earliest possible age. Otherwise it leads to eating and drinking problems, problems with breastfeeding, but also to malocclusions, low tongue position, narrow palate and ENT problems.
Berry Verlinden also joined in here. He explained the consequences of a too short tongue tie if this is not treated at a young age. He explained the link to speech therapy in general and oro-myofunctional therapy (OMFT) in particular. In his lecture, Berry Verlinden described the ways in which oro-myofunctional therapy can contribute to changing deviate mouth habits. Other speakers were the Dutch lactation consultant Maaike van Broekhoven and Katherine Fisher, expert researcher in the field of tongue-tie correction. In addition, an osteopath and a chiropractor spoke.
