Heather Rae El Moussa's Baby's Lip Ties: Lactation Expert Explains

Heather Rae El Moussa has been candid about her breastfeeding journey, opening up this week about some of the challenges she's faced throughout the experience.

The Selling Sunset star, 34, shared on Instagram Tuesday that she'd been having trouble nursing her newborn son Tristan, whom she welcomed on Jan. 31 with husband Tarek El Moussa, as the infant has had tongue, cheek and lip ties, which causes difficulty latching during breastfeeding.

Speaking to Danielle Gauss, an international board-certified lactation consultant working with Heather, she tells PEOPLE what it means for someone to have oral tethering, how it can affect the breastfeeding process and what new parents should look out for.

"I can tell a lot from a baby's suck about their birth story, about their anatomy. And it was during one of those first meetings [with Tristan] that I discovered the oral ties that were present," says Gauss. "And so I've just been walking alongside her ever since then to get her and her little guy just to the best outcome possible."

Describing what it means to have oral tethering, Gauss first explains that everyone is born with a frenulum which is the "stringy part under our tongue."

"It's a collagenous fiber that connects from your tongue all the way down to your toe. It's one giant unit," she says. "It can cause so many difficulties, specifically when it comes to breastfeeding, such as slow weight gain, nipple damage, pain with breastfeeding, clogged ducts, etc."

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"It can be extremely painful, not only for mom, but specifically for the baby because if the baby is tied, what happens is that frenulum is attached in the wrong area of the tongue and the lip, and it's a genetic disorder and it can cause any midline defect," she continues.

"When it's tethered, the upper lip, everyone has a connective tissue there, is curled into the palate. And with the tongue, it's connected to almost the tip of the tongue. You can have an anterior tie, which is the visible string that's connected in the wrong area, or in some cases, it's posterior where it's inverted into the tongue, which makes it very difficult and painful for the baby to be able to latch to a breast or a bottle."

"That can cause gas and colic and calorie burn because the head has 12 cranial nerves, 40 muscles and seven bony plates responsible for just one suck. So if anything is tethered in that area, the mouth can't create a seal," explains Gauss. "It's almost like sucking a milkshake through a straw with a hole in it. When we see this problem, it causes a slew of issues for both mom and baby."

And though the word "tie" is in the diagnosis, Gauss says a tongue, cheek, or lip tie doesn't mean the tissue is "necessarily tied in a knot."

"An anterior tie, it almost makes like a heart-shaped tongue where the babies or anyone, even adults who are tongue-tied can't stick their tongue out past the gumline. Those are very visible," she says. "With a posterior tie, you really can only feel it, but you can see that the tongue is tethered or tied to the floor of the mouth so the tongue can't lift and curl."

Gauss, who co-founded the Tongue Tie Tribute, a CO2 laser frenectomy center for infants and adults in California, advises new moms to "trust their instincts" when it comes to noticing if something seems off when breastfeeding.

"Breastfeeding should never hurt. I say that and a lot of moms look at me like I'm crazy, but it's not supposed to. Sometimes it's a positioning thing, but I will say seven out of 10 times, there's an issue with the anatomy of the mouth," she shares. "So if the mom is noticing that they have lipstick-shaped nipples, when the baby cuts off their nipple is creased or misshapen, that's something they can see. If their baby has sucking blisters, which is also very common but not normal, that's something they can visibly see."

"Truthfully, with the new statistics that are coming out, about 75% of the population is walking around with some form of an oral tie. It's whether or not it's symptomatic," she says.

Gauss explains that depending on the type of tie, there are different options available to help with the issue.

"If it's a very visible anterior to the tip of the tongue, which most new moms even without any training or understanding can see, I would recommend getting a frenectomy, which is a CO2 laser release. It's very quick and takes three seconds," she says. "If it's a posterior tongue tie, a lot of times I recommend doing some suck training exercises or some cranial sacral therapy stretches."

She also advises both expecting and new moms "stay on top of their nutrition as it's so much easier on the baby to treat this earlier versus later."

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