the problem with those tongue tie diagnosis checklists

There are 8 muscles in the tongue alone that all have to work correctly to achieve optimal milk transfer. Added to that, is the muscles of the upper lip, the jaw, the neck. The latch, the positioning of the babies' body, their tongue strength, the size of their mouth, the size of their jaw, their palate shape, their co-ordination and their stage of development. Then there are the mother's nipple length, shape, areola size, breast size, storage capacity, let down speed and intensity, supply. If you have been mixed feeding there is aslo the potenial for baby to be using different motor patterns, the size, shape and flow speed of the nipple can all affect sucess. 

In other words there are about 1000 variables that matter, and what the frenulums look like is only one variable, which may actually have little to no impact on sucessful feeding for that particular baby. 

Even if your baby looks like they have a category 4 tie, they may be able to breastfeed sucessfully because enough other variables are in thier favour. Likewise a category 1 tie, can cause major problems if there are enough other variables that are compounding the issue. ​

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