rooted in radically kind care

Our passion is helping you and your family THRIVE.

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James "JT" Thomas, DDS, MS

Founder & Changemaker

Dr. James Thomas founded the health:latch clinic in 2017 with a deep-rooted desire to help families overcome oral & airway health issues. After treating thousands of children in his first dental practice, Everyone By One, he developed a unique understanding of the struggles patients had with breastfeeding, speech, sleep, breathing and more — caused by oral restrictions like tongue and lip tie. Seeing firsthand how stressful it can be for families, he created health:latch as a specialty practice dedicated to changing the lives of these patients and their families. Dr. Thomas received his Doctor of Dental Surgery (DDS) from The University of Michigan.

our story

A niche healthcare practice located in Bellevue, WA, health:latch was founded in 2017 by Dr. James Thomas, a pediatric dentist with over a decade of clinical experience in Washington and a passion for positive health outcomes.

helping ‘everyone by one’

As the founder and owner of NW Pediatric Dentistry in 2007 – later rebranded to Everyone By One – Dr. Thomas pursued a mission to encourage families to visit the dentist by Age One. Throughout his career, he continued to push early intervention and preventative-based outcomes in pediatric dentistry.

Dr. T, a self-proclaimed systems guru, built processes to ensure that pediatric dental patients (ages 0 - 14) under his watch had the best chance for a healthy life starting with good oral health. This worked well for fighting caries (cavities) and maintaining preventative oral health, yet a percentage of the patients developed other notable issues.

form follows function

One of the founding principles of facial development is that “form (the bony structure of the face) follows function (the repetitive patterns of muscle use).”

Dr. Thomas noted negative growth changes including – but not limited to – dental crowding, oral dysfunction of suck/swallow, speech and language issues, large tonsils, high maxillary palates, open mouth breathing posture, and oddly, later-stage nocturnal enuresis (bed wetting).

Connecting the dots that these symptoms could be related to oral dysfunction, or uncoordinated facial muscles, it was time to take the mission to another level.

Dr. Thomas rebranded the pediatric dental offices to Everyone By One in 2013. The brand quickly started to deliver on its mission to get children to the dentist by Age One. The office was flooded with patients getting younger and younger by the day. Most were babies. The clinics even started doing prenatal visits as we knew mother oral bacteria was a factor in early gestational delivery.

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understanding more about oral restrictions

This is when Dr. Thomas started to hear a new set of symptoms from new mothers that consisted of difficult latches with painful breast feedings, engorgement, clogged ducts, and mastitis. Dr. Thomas realized that the restricted tongue, the motor of infant feeding, was causing many of the resulting symptoms these young families were experiencing.

With this goal in mind, Dr. Thomas searched for earlier interventions with infants and children. He became interested in lip, tongue and buccal tie release for newborns. These infants were unable to form a proper lip seal and elevated tongue position during breastfeeding, a growing concern among nursing mothers.

The more babies Dr. Thomas saw in his practice, the more convinced he became that enhancing the duration, along with quality, of breastfeeding could possibly impact the overall health outcomes. Furthermore, with additional research, he began to see improvements with breathing, airway formation, speech and sleep habits in the older children that had a correction later in life.

Dr. Thomas traveled to far-away destinations, uncovered that others had also found similar patterns in their patients. Understanding the importance of this message in a patient's future health, Dr. Thomas was initially frustrated with the inconsistent message about infant oral tethers and the lack of ample education.

In 2013, Dr. Thomas had started to perform frenotomies (with scissors) and quickly realized that technique yielded inconsistent results in his hands. Dr. Thomas made the connection that frenectomies (with a CO2 laser) would allow for a better visual field and a quicker recovery. This is when the consistency of the procedure and the outcomes began to soar.

the birth of health:latch

After extensive research and continuing education, he created a research-based, team approach that integrated modern laser technology and old-fashioned customer service.

The idea and namesake health:latch was born, a practice that has one sole purpose: to help families THRIVE.

Today, health:latch has touched the lives of patients from more than 1,500 different professionals from every specialty in healthcare. We cross-pollinated our mission while being RADICALLY KIND, FIERCELY PATIENT, DISRUPTIVELY BRAVE and DEFIANTLY JOYFUL.

Today, with a network of like-minded medical & healthcare professionals, health:latch prides itself on partnering with parents, patients and providers to educate, diagnose, treat and support families with any challenges related to tongue-tie and early infant feeding.

The health:latch values have, and always will, continue to guide our path. Our team is excited for what’s to come and know there are many more chapters to write of this story.

Most importantly, we look forward to helping your family THRIVE!