What to do if the lip frenulum is broken

The lip ties are the ribbon-like things that connect the lips to the gums. Although this thing is inconspicuous, it has a huge impact on people's daily lives. If someone's lip frenulum is broken, they will experience a lot of discomfort and may even become toothless. Let’s find out what to do if your lip frenulum is broken?

After you turn over your baby's upper lip, you will see a tendon-like thing connecting the upper lip and gums. This is the upper lip frenulum. The frenulum on the upper lip will be thicker when the baby is born. As the deciduous teeth erupt and the baby grows older, the frenulum on the upper lip will become thinner.

If a baby falls and hits his face, it is easy for the frenulum to break. Because humans have abundant capillaries in the lower lip, the baby's mouth will bleed relatively more after the frenulum is broken. Therefore, in the early stage of the frenulum breaking, the baby's mouth will be full of blood. Although it looks scary, parents are requested not to panic.

At this time, you should first check whether the baby has injured his teeth. If only the frenulum is broken, use medical gauze or medical cotton swabs at home to help clean the blood in the baby's mouth. If the baby is too young, it may be a little troublesome because it requires the help of an adult to successfully deal with it. Older children can spit out the blood on their own initiative.

Next, check the degree of breakage of the frenulum of the upper lip. Remember not to use too much force to turn over the upper lip, which will cause secondary injury. You can use a medical cotton swab to gently lift the upper lip for observation. If the broken wound is not large, then rinse the baby's mouth with medical saline or wipe it with a cotton swab. This step is mainly for disinfection to prevent secondary infection of the wound. Disinfection needs to be performed several times a day. Although it may be painful, you must believe that babies are very strong.

The next thing to do is to wait for the wound to heal. Generally, the wound of a broken upper lip frenulum can heal naturally in about a week. Because it is a wound inside the mouth, and as mentioned earlier, there are more capillaries in the mouth. Although the amount of bleeding will be more when injured, the wound will not heal faster than other parts of the body. So just wait for the wound to heal normally. Here we must remind everyone that wound healing does not mean that the upper lip frenulum will grow back. After the upper lip frenulum is broken, it may grow back to the same as before, or it may disappear from then on. However, parents do not need to worry too much, because the loss of the upper lip frenulum will not have any effect on the baby, neither will it affect speech nor other oral functions. It is said that some babies go to the hospital for surgery to cut off their upper lip frenulum because it is too long and affects the appearance of their teeth.

The above is a simple treatment method for a broken upper lip frenulum, but in actual practice, each baby may be injured differently, so the specific treatment method should be determined based on the situation at the time. If the baby falls severely and the bleeding cannot be stopped, or the broken wound is too large, then you need to go to the hospital for timely medical treatment. Some babies with broken upper lip frenulum also need to go to the hospital for simple sutures.