Mouth injuries?

[sarahsthreads]

On Saturday, DD2 fell next to a coffee table within arms' reach of three adults, including me. We all agree that she did not actually hit the table, but she started screaming in pain, and when I picked her up she was bleeding quite a bit from her mouth.

She absolutely would not let us look in her mouth at all, so we let her suck her fingers and a wet washcloth until the bleeding stopped. (It took a while!) I managed to check that all her teeth were still there and firmly attached, but that's about it. We figured she must have bitten her lip really hard when she fell or maybe hit her elbow on the table while her fingers were in her mouth and scratched herself.

This morning she fell again (and once again, not into/onto anything) and her mouth started bleeding again. This time I got a good enough look to see that it's that little bit of tissue that connects your upper lip to your gum, whatever that's called. It stopped pretty quickly this time, but the cut looks pretty deep. And at bedtime DD1 "hugged" DD2 (those hugs always involve one or both girls hitting the floor) and again DD2's mouth started bleeding.

Anything I can or should do for this? Do I need to call the pediatrician or dentist, or just wait it out and stick her in a protective bubble? Seriously, danger-baby is going to give me a head full of gray hair before Christmas this year...

Sarah

[hillview]

Sounds like a torn frenulum. According to webmd this is a non doc visit. http://www.webmd.com/oral-health/tc/mouth-and-dental-injuries-topic-overview

Here is a post about it at mothering.com

http://www.mothering.com/discussions/archive/index.php/t-613328.html

Hugs!!
/hillary

[elliput]

DS just did this same thing last week. There initially seemed like quite a bit of blood, but it stopped before I got a call back from the pediatrician's office. I called the nurses line to find out if I needed to bring him in or take him to the ER. The nurse said it is a very common injury and the injury area is so small that there is really no way to even put in stitches there.

:hug::hug::hug:

[DrSally]

She could've torn her frenulum. DD has a moderately low frenulum and the ped said it will either go up with time or maybe even get torn in the normal course of childhood (both are ok). FWIW, DD fell flat on her face from a running position recently. She bit her lip and had a big, fat, bloody lip for a few days.

[sarahsthreads]

Ah! The name of that bit of tissue makes it much easier to google. :)

Thank you!

Sarah :)

[sarahsthreads]

DS just did this same thing last week. There initially seemed like quite a bit of blood, but it stopped before I got a call back from the pediatrician's office. I called the nurses line to find out if I needed to bring him in or take him to the ER. The nurse said it is a very common injury and the injury area is so small that there is really no way to even put in stitches there.

:hug::hug::hug:

It really did seem like a lot of blood! It's so hard when they're screaming and there's a lot of blood and you have to stay calm to try to calm them down, isn't it?

It's good to know it's common, I guess, although I feel for you and your DS! :hug:

Sarah :)

[sarahsthreads]

She could've torn her frenulum. DD has a moderately low frenulum and the ped said it will either go up with time or maybe even get torn in the normal course of childhood (both are ok). FWIW, DD fell flat on her face from a running position recently. She bit her lip and had a big, fat, bloody lip for a few days.

Your poor DD. :(

Sarah

[hellokitty]

She should be fine. It's one of those situations where it seems a lot worse than it really is, esp with all the blood and your child screaming and crying. DS2 tore his frenulum taking a tumble down our stairs (after I had warned him to stop goofing around, of course). There was a LOT of blood. However, he had a frenulum that the ped dentist said would probably have to be cut sooner or later anyway. He told us that if we were lucky, DS2 would tear it on our own and save us a bunch of $, lol! We had our ped dentist check it much later after it had healed and she said (different ped dentist), that it tore and healed quite nicely, so there was nothing to worry about.

Anyway, the mouth is an area that obviously gets a lot of blood flow. After my two older kids both getting mouth injuries (DS2's torn frenulum and DS1 got a huge cut on his lip from DS2 throwing an automoblox at his face), both healed quickly. With DS1's injuries, there were so much blood, we freaked and DH took him to the ER, only for the doc to take a look, give DS1 a popsicle and tell them that basically they do not do anything for mouth injuries, since they heal very quickly on their own. Yeah, that was like $150 down the toilet for that visit to the ER.

[Tondi G]

oh... my DS did this when he was around a year old... pulled up on the tricycle and it moved and he smacked his mouth on it. Bled pretty good and healed up fine. We gave him some tylenol or motrin I believe since it seemed like it hurt.

[bubbaray]

Frenulums bleed like there is no tomorrow. Very scary, but usually its a good thing -- cleans any dirt and bacteria out of the wound so it can heal nicely.

FWIW, DD#1 fell at about that age and knocked a couple of teeth nearly, but not quite, out. The amount of blood was in-freakin-sane. Both teeth interestingly moved back within about 6m and are fine. At the time the incident happened, I paged the on-call pediatric dentist and was already doing all the "right things" (cold washcloth compress) by the time he responded to the page. They had her come in a week later for an exam and kept an eye on the tooth and tissue for the next few months.