'Her eyes were dull and sunken in’ Mum issues important tongue tie warning after newborn daughter dramatically lost weight

A mum has sent a heartfelt warning to parents over the dangers of tongue or lip tie after they caused her daughter to dramatically lose weight.

Jordan Talley revealed how breastfeeding her daughter Lucy became impossible because she was unable to properly latch onto her mum’s breast – something she says her doctors failed to diagnose, despite Lucy’s dramatic weight loss so soon after birth.

‘She came out much smaller than we had expected – only 6 pounds, 8 ounces and 20 inches long,’ Jordan told Love What Matters.

‘We spent the first two hours of her life smiling, taking photos, and breastfeeding on and off…her latch seemed good. Her tiny lips looked to me as if they were as wide as they could go, and her mouth was moving, so I assumed that she was eating well.’

But despite Jordan ‘following all the rules in the book’ and nursing Lucy ‘pretty often’, she ‘seemed to pull away from her latch and scream as if there wasn’t anything coming out’.

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During Lucy’s weekly check-ups, her weight decreased instead of rising above her birth weight as is expected, so Jordan ‘asked her doctor to check and see if she had a tongue or lip tie, because I had read that ties can interfere with breastfeeding — thus interfering with weight gain.’

But despite the doctor claiming Lucy was fine, her weight had plummeted at her one-month weigh in.

Jordan said: ‘My sweet girl had lost her chubby cheeks. Her eyes were dull and sunken in, and I was STILL having pain every time she nursed… Still not at birth weight. I fought against thoughts of failure as we walked back to the exam room.’

After a desperate plea on Facebook, Jordan was advised to see a lactation consultant, Amanda, who quickly diagnosed Lucy with a tongue and a lip tie.

‘Amanda referred me to someone who performed tongue tie and lip tie revisions… Immediately after the procedure, I got to nurse Lucy.  As soon as she latched, I could feel a difference,’ Jordan said.

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‘Every day she was looking different. She had good colour, her skin had cleared up, and she had a sparkle in her eye again… She was one whole pound beyond her birth weight.’

Jordan is now pleading with parents to become more aware of ‘these underlying issues that complicate breastfeeding’.

She said: ‘We need more lactation consultants. We need more ‘Amanda’s’ in the world… The greatest lesson in this is that I was not failing my baby. It wasn’t her fault, nor was it my fault that she was not able to eat properly. Had I not reached out, I imagine I would have given up entirely.’