How to take videos for oral assessment

Videos are the best way for me to see how your baby’s tongue and lips move if I can’t meet with you in person.  I will carefully look over these videos, take still shots, and mark them up for your baby’s chart.

To get the best video possible please turn on your phone’s flash and use a well-lit room.  You will need another person to either be the “cameraman” or to have their fingers in baby’s mouth while you video.  Keep the phone camera close to baby so I can see as much inside their mouth as possible!  You may need to touch the phone screen in the center while videoing so that the focus is clear.  The camera person will be by baby’s feet.

You may need to swaddle your baby to do these videos.  Baby will need to be lying on their back.

There are 3 things I need to see clearly in the video.  For all three things you will need to have baby in your lap or on the floor with their head near your belly and their feet pointing away- like in the picture below.

how to position baby to check for tongue tie and lip tie

1) Lift up baby’s upper lip so I can see the frenum and how well baby’s lip can flare up to their nostrils.  You will want to hook under the lip and pull up, not just roll the upper lip back!  See the beginning of this video for an example.

2) Lift up baby’s tongue so I can see underneath, look for how well the tongue lifts, and look for a tongue tie.  This video shows you how to lift up underneath the tongue while you make the video. 

For the third part of the video (or a second video) I need to see the baby sucking on your finger.

3) Put your finger in baby’s mouth (your finger pad against their palate, nail against their tongue). Let baby suck on your finger for a few seconds. Then I want you to use your other hand to draw DOWN on their chin/jaw. I want to see what the tongue does on your finger when the mouth isn’t closed- this shows me how well baby can lift their tongue while their mouth is open.

You can see this being done before and after a tongue tie procedure in this video.

Once you’ve completed the video/videos, you can email them to me at rachel@rachelobrienibclc.com or text them to me through the Spruce App to 617-231-9089.