Heather Rae El Moussa is getting candid about an aspect of motherhood. On Monday, the Selling Sunset star shared that her and Tarek El Moussa's newborn son, Tristan, experienced some health setbacks that made breastfeeding an initial challenge.
Heather, who welcomed her first child with her husband on Jan. 31, revealed that her baby boy had tongue, cheek, lip ties, as well as jaundice when he was born.
"Have been in mama hibernation mode for the past couple weeks but soaking up some fresh air today with my lovey," the 35-year-old reality star captioned the picture of her and her baby boy resting outside on the roof. "As promised, I want to talk to you guys about my breastfeeding journey because it’s definitely been a journey !! I thought…. I’ll just pop him on my boob and feed him anytime. Ya no!!!"
Heather continued, "Tristan had tongue tie, cheek tie, lip tie and jaundice which were all caught very early on thanks to my incredible lactation specialist and @tonguetietribe, they’re literally baby fairies 🧚♀️ I’m so lucky to have found them for the knowledge & support🙏🏻 but it made it very hard for him to latch & suck and it made it so that he was burning a lot of calories because it was so hard for him to eat so his weight was dropping. We’re now 2 weeks past getting his tongue tie fixed and he’s latching so well on the left side and we’re still working on the right side using non-traditional positions which were shown to me by the baby fairies 🧚♀️."According to the Mayo Clinic, tongue tie "is a condition present at birth that restricts the tongue's range of motion. An unusually short, thick or tight band of tissue (lingual frenulum) tethers the bottom of the tongue's tip to the floor of the mouth, so it may interfere with breastfeeding."
At times, tongue tie may not cause problems. Other times, it can be fixed with a simple surgical procedure.
