 Hello, everybody, Richard Rowski here. So I have been a dental professional for almost 18 years now, and let me talk to you guys about tongue ties. So what does a tongue tie look like when you should be concerned, and how do you treat a tongue tie in children? How does this even happen? So first I'm gonna show you guys what it looks like, because if you have no idea, you're going to wanna see that first. So this is what a tongue tie looks like. It is basically when there's a tie to the tongue that is stuck to the floor of the mouth. So you're a child or as an adult, you can't properly extend your tongue. You should be able to stick your tongue out all the way. So if you try to do that, and it's kind of only going so far, if you guys watch me for a moment, you can imagine how difficult that is. Having a tongue tie means you're probably not able to eat properly. You won't be able to speak properly. When you go to sleep, you won't be able to breathe through your nose. You are now breathing through your mouth, which causes a lot of other issues. So a tongue tie usually needs to be corrected. Sometimes it's a very little tongue tie. We're not concerned, but other times we say the sooner we can kind of cut that tongue tie away, the better. These days they make it very easy. In most cases you can use a laser, takes 10 minutes, done and done. And this can help that large muscle of the tongue sort of manage things properly inside the mouth. If you have a large muscle inside the mouth, that's not able to go anywhere. Again, this is where you have difficulty eating. You have difficulty chewing. You probably can't breathe properly. And as a child, as a newborn even, they can't really express to you, oh, I can't eat properly. I can't sleep properly. I'm having trouble breathing. They can't tell you these things. So what they do is they have their mouth open all the time. But that can cause other issues as they get older. Even within a year, it can cause so many issues having to do with the teeth and the mouth. So this is what a tongue tie looks like. Now, what do you do about a tongue tie? Typically, when you take your newborn or child or toddler to the doctors, they're going to look inside the mouth and let you know if they have a tongue tie or not. Some doctors don't look inside the mouth. Please ask your doctor to do so or go to a dental professional. I am a mobile dental hygienist where I go into people's homes and I look for all of these things, so important. So that is typically how parents know about a tongue tie. Or if you have a newborn and you're noticing they're having trouble eating, they're having trouble sleeping through the night. It's not just because they're a baby and they're learning new things. It could be because they're having issues eating. They're having trouble breathing through their nose, which is not normal. So the tongue tie should be taken care of. So how do you prevent a tongue tie? It's just the way it is. It's just you're going to have it yes or no. I did not have one. I don't believe my siblings had one, but these days I'm telling you 90%, I haven't done the exact math, but a lot of my patients, kids and newborns have a tongue tie and I'm the one to let them know that should be lasered away sooner rather than later, okay, because without that happening, there can be problems coming up in the future. Problems including if they're not able to eat, as I mentioned, if they're not able to eat, if they're not able to sleep, they can't really do much with that. So then their mouth is always open. If their mouth is always open, that's going to cause problems for your mouth and your teeth. The muscles around here are going to be a certain way than if they have a closed mouth, which should be happening when you're not doing anything else. If you notice your newborn, your toddler always has their mouth open. It could be from a tongue tie. It could be from other things too, but these things need to be looked at. So either go to your dental professional or your family doctor who will likely recommend you to a dental professional after that, but please have that looked at the sooner, the better. So when I see my patients from zero to age three, a lot of parents ask me, so you can't really clean their teeth. So what exactly do you do? So I tell them that I look at other things inside the mouth, tongue ties, lip ties, all kinds of things. So we don't just count the teeth or look at the teeth, we look inside the mouth as well. So always talk to your dental professional, book an appointment, it will be absolutely worth it. Let me know you guys, if you have any questions, thank you so much for watching. Click like if you like this video and I'll talk to you guys in the next one.