Do children require early Orthodontic care?

Why start it while they are still young?

A research has led dentists to understand that it is at the young age that children start to develop their permanent set of molars and incisors. We understand that children tend to develop habits of thumb sucking which can have direct impacts on their teeth. If orthodontic care is started out young for children, it will be easier to:

• Predict the nature of the growth of their teeth.

• Avoid situations of malocclusions such as crossbites, overbites, underbites; misalignments, dental cavities, and extractions.

• Guide the growth of their jawbone and lower facial bone growth promoting space for their permanent teeth to grow.

What can cause early orthodontic problems?

Some of the common orthodontic problems that can develop in children are excessive space between the teeth, overcrowding, and protruded teeth. 

Most of these orthodontic conditions are due to:

• Genetics.

• Irregular loss of the first teeth.

• Injury or trauma. 

• Thumb sucking.

How can early orthodontic treatment help my child?

As much as it is important to consider orthodontic treatment at any age, we recommend to start it while patients are still young as they will go a long way in correcting bad habits that children tend to pick up to severe cases of malocclusions.

Early orthodontic treatment can help avoid the following:

Bad habits: Here, when we refer to the word “bad” we mean the common habit of thumb sucking that children tend to develop while they are little. Now, this may seem like a mini alarm to parents to realize that their children might be picking up a detrimental habit that can likely influence the growth of their children’ s teeth, jaw, and mouth. Thumb sucking can lead to open bite that can directly influence the child’s speech. It is caused due to the force of tongue pushing the teeth in a forward direction.

Mouth Breathing: Mouth breathing is when your child tends to breathe from the mouth while sleeping. Professionals consider this as a warning sign for severe conditions such as sleep apnea. While breathing through the mouth, the air passes directly into the lungs without getting prior filtration. Mouth breathing can result in a severe overbite. This can lead to abnormal elongation of the face as the upper jaw will tend to grow out.

Early orthodontic treatment can help promote the following:

Improve Facial Development: By avoiding conditions of crossbites and correcting the accuracy of the jawbone growth, dentists can improve misalignments thereby improving the child’s facial development.

Avoiding Teeth Extractions: Early treatment can include more amount of space for new teeth to grow. This will avoid overcrowding of teeth which would otherwise require extractions.