Babies born tongue-tied can wait up to three months before having the condition rectified, according to new figures that reveal a "postcode lottery" in the time it takes to receive treatment.
More than 15,000 babies were born in 2013 with the problem, where the skin that connects their tongues to their mouths – the frenulum – is too short to allow them to breastfeed.
The NHS recommends that babies are exclusively breastfed for the first six months of their lives to reduce a catalogue of ailments, including the likelihood of early infections and obesity in later life. Yet responses to freedom of information requests made to hospital trusts across the country reveal wide disparities in how long it takes for babies with tongue-tie to have their condition resolved.
The longest waits were at the University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Trust, where it took on average 84 days for the procedures to be carried out. Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust also initially said its average wait was 84 days before subsequently adding that it did not believe the figures it initially gave were accurate. Stockport NHS Foundation Trust carried out 1,195 procedures in 2013, the most in the country, but did not provide its average waiting time. The national average wait was 21.6 days, according to the responses to requests sent to the 160 trusts in the country.
The figures further suggest that many parents are being forced to have the operation done privately. Of the 155,541 babies diagnosed with tongue-tie last year, only 9,256 had NHS operations, although not all of those concerned will have needed treatment. The cost of the procedure with BUPA is around £1,530.
Luciana Berger, the shadow minister for public health who uncovered the figures, said that the continued regional variation in the uptake of breastfeeding was being exacerbated by lengthy waiting times for surgery.
She said: "These worrying new figures show that thousands of mothers and babies are not getting the care and treatment they need fast enough. "Too many new mums who want to breastfeed their babies are not able to because of long waits for a simple tongue-tie procedure.
"For other parents, the length of the waits is forcing them to go private and pay for an expensive operation. Neither of these options is acceptable.
"The timely treatment of tongue-tie is vital to ensure that new mums who want to breastfeed their babies are able to. The government must tackle these delays and ensure that the procedure is available for all on the NHS."
Babies with tongue-tie tend to have heart-shaped tongues because the middle is pulled in by the short frenulum, and they cannot stick out their tongue beyond their lower lip.
Signs of the condition in newborns include gulping and clicking while breastfeeding because they cannot latch on properly.
Research published in the Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health in 2005 found treating tongue-tie led to improved feeding in 95% of babies.
Belinda Phipps, chief executive of the National Childbirth Trust, said: "Tongue-tie can cause parents and babies much suffering. It often leaves babies hungry, unhappy and frustrated and parents sick with worry because their child isn't putting on any weight. Mothers may be sore, or even bleeding, because their baby isn't able to feed properly.
"To compound all this, it can take weeks or even months to get tongue-tie diagnosed and treated. Parents often end up paying for private treatment when the remedy may be a simple surgical procedure."
