Word of mouth: Exeter siblings spread awareness with documentary
As many as one in every 10 infants born worldwide suffers from some form of Ankyloglossia, more commonly known as tongue tie. But all too often newborns go undiagnosed leaving parents unaware that their child may have the condition. That’s why two enterprising Exeter students, Yuvan Rasiah ’25 and Laavanya Rasiah ’27, have taken on this topic with the hope of spreading awareness and providing resources to parents.
The siblings dedicated last summer to creating a comprehensive documentary titled “Running Out of Breath,” which details the complications from tongue tie (an abnormally short membrane connecting the tongue to the floor of the mouth) that can affect infants and linger into adulthood if undiagnosed and untreated. Symptoms range from altered breathing and sleep to nourishment issues like a baby’s inability to latch during breast feeding or a general disinterest in eating.
No one knows these symptoms better than Yuvan himself, who struggled with the affliction. That experience was impactful enough for the senior to devote his free time and effort to the cause even 10 years after initial diagnosis.
“The idea for the documentary is to give a guide to people who maybe are in similar situations dealing with similar things,” he says. “I didn’t want families to be in the same place we were in where we didn’t know what we were doing.”
Yuvan’s restless sleep and struggle to chew food as a grade-schooler eventually led to a diagnosis and corrective surgery, but it was a circuitous route during those all-important years of growth and development.
“There was no source of information that was kind of encompassing. There was a lot of different people, a lot of different ideas, perspectives, and I tried a lot of different things that didn’t work,” he says.
Present for her older brother’s journey was lower Laavanya, who jumped at the opportunity to apply her interest in videography to help tell Yuvan’s story. Along with their co-producer, Ananya Mathur, the siblings spoke on-camera with several experts in the field and parents of children who had been diagnosed with tongue tie. For Laavanya, there was no better medium than a documentary to tackle this subject.
“We wanted to cater to an audience of families, people in similar situation that our family was in,“ she says. “The testimonials from parents are powerful. To convey that emotion, I think video versus a medical journal kind of article was important.”
The students say the effort to produce the documentary, and their initial attraction to the Academy, was inspired by Exeter’s core value of non sibi.
“The concept of non sibi was something that is very important to our family, even if it was not named that way,” Laavanya says. “We found Exeter very intriguing for that, it was similar to the way we grew up.”
With the documentary now out in the world, the students are focusing on the next big things. For Laavanya, it’s two more years at the Academy where her other extracurricular pursuits include the Hindu Society and Bollywood Dance Group. For Yuvan it’s college where he hopes to continue to intertwine his passion for storytelling and science.
“Using my love for writing to connect people’s stories, the medical industry, neuroscience and science really in general has always been something I’ve wanted to do,” he says.
Watch the documentary here.