Does your child snore, have difficulty concentrating or are they tired all the time?

If you answer yes to any of the above, has an experienced tongue tie practitioner checked your child for tongue tie?

It is not normal for children to snore nor should they be fatigued or have excessive daytime sleepiness. Some children with sleep apnoea present with issues of inattention (poor concentration) and hyperactivity. 

In this study, published by the Stanford University Sleep Medicine Division, they found that 42% of the children who had Obstructive Sleep Apnoea Syndrome (OSAS) also had a tongue tie. 

They looked at 150 children aged 3 to 10 years old who had been referred to them for sleep disordered breathing. In the 63 children who had a tongue tie 60 of them had a parent or sibling with a tongue tie who were being treated for sleep disordered breathing. These children had also reported previous problems with speech, sucking and swallowing.

The other 87 children had enlarged adenoids and/or tonsils as a cause for their sleep apnoea. 80% of those in the tongue tie group had a high-arched narrow palate. This is because the tongue cannot rest up in the palate and thus not stimulate the growth of the upper jaw outwards and forwards. This means the upper airway doesn't grow as well as it should. Mouth breathing, especially at night, is a common finding along with speech problems in these children. Despite most of these children having speech therapy they had not been checked for tongue tie.

They concluded that a tongue tie not treated at birth is associated with OSAS at a later age and similarly those presenting with OSAS should be screened for tongue tie.

Please find a link to the article here