# 12 mo. old fell and bit her tongue BADLY--need help please :(



## veggielover (Apr 17, 2004)

My 12 month old fell down & bumped her chin last night. That's when I noticed the blood....lots of it Apparently, she bit her tongue when she fell. It's a really nasty wound. It took forever last night to get it to stop bleeding! She keeps putting her fingers and toys in her mouth which causes it to start bleeding again. I'm also worried about infection. When she tried to eat food late last night, it started bleeding again! Im still breastfeeding her, but it seems to hurt for her to suck--she'll try to latch on and just look at me and just cry. We were up with her until about 7 am just wiping up blood every few minutes and trying to comfort/distract her. Finally slept for 2 hours! Just now she woke up screaming b/c she tried again to latch on. Looks like it had started to clot--now it's bleeding again. She's just pitiful. What can I do?? Please help! Should I not feed her at all? For how long?? She won't take a cup or food today--just looks at them and cries. This is heartbreaking








Any advice from Mamas who have been through this before?? Thanks bunches!


----------



## hnybee (Sep 21, 2003)

It sounds like she may need a fwe stitches. A very good friend of mine had a similar situation last week. Her son fell off a chair and bit through his lip. It was bleeding pretty bad too. It's always bad when it involves their mouth because you can't just wrap it up and leave it alone until it heals.

My friend gave her son a homeopathic remedy called Ledum. It's for puncture wounds. She also took him to her ped and baby had to get 4 stitches. The combo of the two seemed to make him totally better. By the next day he was up and about and eating/nursing just fine.

good luck and hope your baby feels better soon!


----------



## InochiZo (Aug 17, 2004)

I just wanted to post regarding the fear of infection. The saliva has antibaterial properties as does BM. I have not heard of very many mouth infections. You might want to stop BF for 4-6 hours to keep the clot. I don't really know if that will help but I wish you both a quick return to happy BF. Sorry, I can't be of more help but I think mouths heal fairly quickly.


----------



## tracymom (Mar 11, 2002)

My youngest son fell and bit his tongue nearly clean through at about 14 months. We took him to the doctor just to have it looked at and he said he didn't think stitches right there would do him that much good in his case.

I remember that he didn't really want much food or to BF for the next couple days, but as soon as he started feeling better (I assume when it started to clot/heal up) he more than made up for it with nursing, which I was happy to oblige him with as I knew it would help both as food, fluid, and antibacterially. He still has a little groove on his tongue where it was, but no permanent problems.


----------



## veggielover (Apr 17, 2004)

Thanks ladies







She is doing MUCH better tonight. Today was pretty rough, she wouldn't nurse at all, wouldn't take a cup or bottle. She did eat fork mashed bananas and would take liquids from a spoon. Really clingy all day, all she wanted was Mama--poor baby. But- about two hours ago she took breast milk from the bottle and a little juice. Then, she finally decided to nurse again a few minutes ago and seemed to be fine--no pain







She's asleep on the Boppy in my lap as I type this. Sleeping peacefully for the first time since the accident.
Her tongue looks okay. The clot finally held and seems like it will heal up just fine. From what I've researched (and heard) so far, saliva and breast milk both have anti-bacterial properties, so infection shouldn't be a problem. And the tongue heals super fast on it's own--stitches usually aren't necessary as long as the bleeding stops (which it did). Thanks to all who posted







I think she'll be okay!


----------

