So can the tongue-tied baby breastfeed?  Yes, physically it’s certainly possible.  But the latch will likely be painful for mom, and not effective enough at drawing out milk that the baby may not get enough milk, and mom’s milk supply may decrease.  The solution?  Most lactation consultants recommend a frenotomy - a clipping of the frenulum to release the tongue.  Now some doctors will make it difficult to get this done, questioning the benefits.  But I’ve been wondering - what happened to babies born before frenotomy was invented?  I’ve heard of midwives leaving one pinky nail long to slice frenula... but was that really the practice through the ages?

One answer is that the frenulum releases throughout gestation, so preemies are more likely to have tight frenula, and preemies are much more common (and more commonly survive) today.  But for the others - did mothers just tough it out and nurse through the pain and let their babies nurse around the clock to get enough milk in?  Did they express and feed their babies from a cup?  Eventually the baby’s tongue would develop enough to make nursing effective and comfortable...  This isn’t a new problem - why the new solution?