Understanding Tongue Mechanics Will Help You In Your Clinical Practice
The mechanism of tongue movement and function during breastfeeding (and bottle-feeding) has not been widely disseminated to practitioners. Classic teaching on ankyloglossia oversimplifies the physical examination technique needed to challenge tongue function and may result in an under correction of tongue mobility. The majority of published studies still rely on older methods of diagnosing ankyloglossia and performing frenotomy, blunting its potential efficacy. Common understanding of infant tongue physiology is critical for future research to be impactful.
Given the anatomical location and airway implications of ankyloglossia, it is imperative that contemporary information is disseminated to our field. In this presentation, a combination of high resolution submental ultrasound during breastfeeding and videos of intraoral examinations to demonstrate the unique tongue movements during infant feeding will be used.
Dr. Bobby Ghaheri hails from the great land of southwestern Ohio. He did his undergraduate training in Spanish and Anthropology at The Ohio State University, and remained there for medical school. In 2002, he and his wonderful wife relocated to Portland, Oregon, where he did his residency training in otolaryngology/head and neck surgery at Oregon Health Sciences University. In 2007, he joined The Oregon Clinic, the largest multispecialty clinic in Oregon.