After revealing that her 2-month-old daughter Charlotte underwent a procedure to relieve a lip and tongue tie, Good Bones star Mina Starsiak Hawk says that her 2-year-old son Jack Richard has the same condition. Starsiak Hawk made the revelation in a series of videos shared to her Instagram Story Tuesday morning in which she spread information about the condition and answered the many questions her fans had sent her.
Opening up about her daughter’s procedure and what she had since learned about the condition, Starsiak Hawk said that after learning of her daughter’s tie, “the natural question” was whether or not Jack, her oldest child with husband Steve Hawk, also had a lip or tongue tie. The HGTV star explained that they “checked him” and discovered “he has a tie as well.” Sharing photos of her son’s lip tie, Starsiak Hawk said that she and her husband would have the tie looked at by a doctor to determine if treatment is necessary.
Videos by PopCulture.com
The 2-year-old, Starsiak Hawk said, sees a speech therapist on Mondays. Answering a fan question regarding what the potential consequences are of not treating a lip or tongue tie, the Good Bones star had explained that “at a young age, people’s biggest concern is a speech therapist and your kids having speech problem.” Lip and tongue ties can restrict the movement of the tongue and mouth, which can affect the ability to make sounds. Starsiak Hawk explained that her son’s speech therapist said, “Try to suck and you use the back of your tongue way more than the front of your tongue, so if you have too large of a connection in the back your tongue can’t lift which restricts being able to make certain sounds as does not being able to close your mouth well which is caused by the upper or lower lip tie.” She noted, however, that they are not yet sure if Jack’s lip tie is “enough to be causing speech problems.”
The mom of two’s decision to check her son for a lip or tongue tie came after she discovered that her 2-month-old-daughter had the condition, which is caused when the membrane that connects the tongue to the floor of the mouth or the tissue connecting the lip to the gum “is thick, short, or otherwise malformed.” Starsiak Hawk said that she only discovered that her daughter had the condition after she “got a lot of messages on Instagram” from fans who had seen pictures of Charlotte and heard her eating in videos. Prior to that, the HGTV star said that she “hadn’t even recognized” that her daughter was experiencing many of the symptoms of a lip tie. After meeting with a doctor, little Charlotte had the tie “lasered” and is now recovering.
