Tongue-tie is when the tissue that attaches the tongue to the bottom of the mouth (lingual frenulum) is too short.

Many children with tongue-tie do not have symptoms. Symptoms of tongue-tie may include:

• Trouble latching and sucking during breastfeeding. Bottle-fed babies often don't have problems. That's because drinking from a bottle uses different mouth movements than breastfeeding.
• Speech problems. This may happen when the tip of the tongue cannot rise high enough to make some sounds clearly. These sounds may include t, d, z, s, th, n, and l.
• Personal or social problems. The limited tongue movement can make it hard to do certain things. These may include playing a wind instrument or using the tongue to clean food off the teeth.

Many children with tongue-tie adapt to the condition or their lingual frenulum stretches as they grow.

Surgery may be needed if a child has problems caused by the condition that don't get better with other treatments.