Ankyloglossia in infants and its impact on breastfeeding - etiology, diagnosis, treatment. Literature review

Abstract

Ankyloglossia is a condition of limited tongue mobility caused by a restrictive lingual frenulum. Proper tongue mobility is essential for proper food intake (breastfeeding, speech development or proper development of facial bones). There is no clear classification that would indicate the need for surgical intervention or conservative treatment.

Material and method: A literature review was conducted by searching the PubMed database, Google Scholar, literature using the keywords 'ankyloglossia', ‘tongue tie', 'frenotomy,' ‘breastfeeding’, :lingual frenulum’. Focusing on the most recent reports, the selected articles were published from 2019 to 2024.

Brief description of the state of knowledge: The aim of the study was to review the literature on current recommendations regarding etiology, diagnostics, typical clinical manifestations of ankyloglossia in newborns and infants with particular emphasis on the effect on breastfeeding, indications for surgical treatment, complications after surgery and its effectiveness.

Result and conclusion: There is no clear consensus in the literature on the management of surgical treatment. However, There is a consent that surgery should be performed as soon as possible after an infant has been diagnosed with ankyloglossia and breastfeeding problems that do not improve with conservative treatment.It should be noted that surgical treatment is not the only method of dealing with ankyloglossia.