I care about this work because, before I became a provider in this space, I was a mom searching for answers.

When my first child was an infant, he struggled with significant reflux that continued to get worse. I was repeatedly reassured that he would grow out of it, but something didn’t feel right. I was advised to try reflux medication and bottles thickened with rice cereal. I eliminated what felt like nearly everything from my own diet—dairy, seasonings, cruciferous vegetables, and more—hoping something would help. Nothing seemed to make a difference.

I knew there had to be more to his story.

A close colleague and mentor who performs tethered oral tissue releases reached out to me. When my son was four months old, we took a much deeper look—not simply under his tongue, but at his history, symptoms, and feeding as a whole. After a comprehensive feeding evaluation, we decided to have his tethered oral tissues released and continued supporting him afterward, including care with an infant chiropractor.

I began to see a whole new baby.

That experience changed the direction of my professional life. It sparked a deep-rooted passion to understand why some babies struggle to feed and what we, as providers, can do to better support both babies and their parents. I began pursuing extensive education and training in infant oral function, feeding, airway health, and tethered oral tissues.

When I was expecting my second child, I was determined that this time I would know exactly what to do.

Instead, I learned another important lesson: no two babies—and no two feeding journeys—are the same.

My second experience came with its own challenges. We navigated nipple shields, triple feeding, chiropractic care, and eventually a tongue- and lip-tie release. It wasn’t the simple journey I had imagined, but with the right support and a team of providers working together, I was able to have the breastfeeding experience I had hoped for.

I care, because I’ve been there. Four out of four of my children had lip and tongue ties, and I chose to have all of them revised.

I was determined to breastfeed before I was ever pregnant so when I found out we were having twins, I did as much research as I could about beginning a good breastfeeding relationship: skin to skin after birth, no pacifiers, no bottles for a few months and absolutely no formula. Then my girls were born 7 weeks early, and my plan went to crap. I could barely hold each of them before they were whisked away to the NICU, never mind skin to skin. Within a day they had been given bottles of formula because my milk hadn’t come in and sleeping with pacifiers in their incubators.

I pumped almost exclusively for the month they were in the NICU and when they came home and got a little bigger and stronger, our breastfeeding journey really began… and it hurt! I had wanted to breastfeed more than anything, but it hurt so bad. The girls gained slowly but were gassy, colicky and cried a lot. They also had terrible reflux, and were put on baby Prilosec. I searched the Internet in desperation and thought their symptoms sounded like ties. So I asked my pediatrician to check if they had lip or tongue ties. He said no. I asked a lactation consultant to check. She said they were tied but not bad. On that news, I begged my pediatrician for a referral to an ENT. The ENT said yes they had lip ties but that doesn’t affect breastfeeding. He didn’t see any tongue ties.

The ENT used a pair of scissors to release one of my daughter’s lips while I held her. It was traumatic for both of us. It bled like crazy, and she screamed so hard, her cry was silent for 20 seconds or so. I couldn’t bare to do my other girl that way, and decided I would just tough it out. Besides, her tie didn’t exist or wasn’t that bad according to everyone. We left without being told anything about post op exercises.

I saw a decent change in the revised baby’s latch and feeding habits. She started gaining weight much quicker than the other. I didn’t make the connection, and brushed it off by saying they weren’t identical and every baby is different. Then, around 8 months they started teething and my unrevised daughter began biting me. Due to the restriction, her lip couldn’t become a barrier between her teeth and my breast.