Tongue Lacerations

Pediatrics for Parents, July, 1999

When a child cuts his tongue, there's a lot of pain, bleeding, and crying. It's often difficult to apply pressure to the cut, so the bleeding may be hard to stop. In addition, the child is scared -- and afraid he may need stitches.

A recent small study of children with tongue lacerations found that many didn't need stitches. One-third of the children seen needed stitches because either the laceration went all the way through the tongue or the laceration was on the edge of the tongue. Of the remaining children, most of the cuts were small (less than 1.5 inches long) and on the top of the tongue. Half of the remaining children were stitched, half not.

Two weeks after the laceration occurred, the children were seen for follow-up. The healing was equal in the stitch and no-stitch groups. No relationship was found between the quality of the results and the size of the laceration or how long the bleeding continued.

Pediatric Dentistry, 1-2/99, pp. 31-38.