Do you think your kids can smile confidently with crooked or misaligned teeth? You know the answer, but you always want to see them smiling. Early orthodontic treatment can foresee and treat any crucial dental problem. It can also drastically decrease the treatment time for teeth straightening of your kids.
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You can resolve following childhood dental problems by opting for early orthodontic treatment:
Underbite: It is a dental condition that causes the projection of lower teeth beyond the upper teeth. It is usually accompanied by a misaligned jaw, and it’s primarily genetic. So if your child has an underbite, he/she is probably born with it.
Crossbites: It’s a type of malocclusion when the jaw shifts to one side and upper teeth fit inside lower teeth. It causes facial pain, TMJ, difficulty in chewing, and pain in the jaw. All the bite problems create similar issues.
Dental Crowding: This is also a bite problem in which the teeth don’t have enough room to grow, so they grow unnaturally. Early orthodontic treatment for crowded teeth is necessary to prevent gum disease over time.
Diastema: If your kids have excessively spaced teeth, especially between the upper front teeth, they are suffering from diastema. This abnormal gap between the teeth may or may not disappear with the growth of their permanent teeth.
Hyperdontia or Congenitally Missing Teeth: Hyperdontia is a dental condition that leads to extra teeth in the jaw. And missing teeth in the jaw are called congenitally missing teeth. Your kids may have any of these conditions.
Any Malocclusion: There are many kinds of malocclusion or bite problems. These conditions make it difficult for upper and lower teeth to meet normally or meet at all. It can be caused due to differences in the size of the upper and lower jaw.
Prolonged Sucking of Thumb/Finger/Pacifier: It is common for babies to get hooked on to sucking thumb or pacifier. But it adversely affects the teeth and jaw growth. It can cause teeth to line up abnormally and change in the palate.
Early or Late Loss of Baby Teeth: The average age of kids losing their baby teeth is 13. If they lose their teeth early or late, issues like crowded teeth, spaced teeth, bite problems, etc., can erupt. Your kids may need teeth straightening treatment to fix these issues.
Difficulty in Chewing or Biting: If your kids feel pain and discomfort in chewing, it can be a result of bite problems, bruxism, misaligned jaw, etc. Only an orthodontist during an early orthodontic treatment can detect the underlying dental issue leading to difficulty in chewing.
Mouth Breathing or Snoring From Mouth: When kids breathe or snore from the mouth, it dries out their gums and the tissues in their mouth. This changes natural bacteria balance leading to tooth decay and gum disease.
Speech Impediment due to Dental Conditions: Your child’s teeth, jaw, and tongue affect their speech. It can be anything like tongue-tie, malocclusion, abnormal teeth loss, improper jaw structure, etc. Speech impediment is not good for self-confidence, so it needs to be treated at the earliest.
Wrapping Up!
All the orthodontic issues mentioned here can be solved through early orthodontic treatment in childhood. Braces and Invisalign are also more effective and less time-consuming in childhood than in early teens or adulthood. Therefore you shouldn’t wait any further to take your kids for the early orthodontic treatment.
Creating perfect smiles is what Dr. Satish Pai is committed to. An orthodontist by profession, he believes that a perfect smile is a powerful part of a person’s personality. When he is not working hard on perfecting his patients’ smiles at Putnam Ortho, he is busy writing engaging articles about everything related to healthy and perfect smiles. His other passions include golf, yoga, and surfing. Spending time with his family always brings a smile to his face.
