Frenotomy for tongue-tie in Australian children, 2006-2016: an increasing problem.

D. The Possum d.gov.au j doi: 10.5 Clinically significant tongue-tie in breastfeeding pairs was overlooked during the second half of the 20th century. Tongue-tie (and the newer diagnoses of upper lip tie and posterior tongue-tie) have received increased attention following the resurgent commitment of women to breastfeeding over the past decade and the growth in numbers of breastfeeding support professionals. We retrospectively investigated temporal trends in frenotomy rates in Australia for children aged 0e4 years by analysing de-identified Medicare data for the period 2006e2016 (tongue-tie surgery item codes: 30278, 30281, 52081, 52084). The population of children aged 0e4 years was estimated from Australian Bureau of Statistics census data. Categorical data were analysed in c tests, using Stata 14.1 (StataCorp). The Children’s Health Queensland Human Research Ethics Committee granted an ethics review waiver for the study. During 2006e2016, 52 473Medicare frenotomy items for 0to 4-year-old children were recorded; the rate increased from 1.22 per 1000 population in 2006 to 6.35 per 1000 in 2016. The highest rate was for the Australian Capital Territory in 2016 (16.5 per 1000 population; Box 1). The frenotomy rate increased significantly across the study period in the ACT (by 3710%), Western Australia (530%), New South Wales (487%) and Queensland (474%), but not in Tasmania (Box 2).