A one-month-old male infant was referred because of noisy breathing sounds, feeding difficulty and shortness of breath. A lateral radiography of the neck showed abnormal soft tissue mass at tongue base. While waiting for a scheduled bronchoscopic examination, respiratory distress and noisy breathing sounds disappeared after nasogastric suctioning. Dramatic improvement in respiratory distress in a young infant with feeding difficulties may have been due to rupture of a tongue-base cyst following oropharyngeal manipulations.