A Lifetime Of Health And Prosperity

Parents always know their babies better than anyone, but it can be so hard to insist on the kind of care you feel your child needs when you, yourself, are not a medical professional. Parents advocate for their children like nobody else. Early interventions can mean the difference between a lifetime of struggle and a lifetime of health and prosperity. This is largely due, again, to our fragmented medical system. But really, parents are the key. She was a healthy, happy baby, but she snored and sometimes seemed to struggle to nurse. When Frances’s teeth started to come in, they were crooked and crowded. But her pediatrician was not concerned. He shrugged off my friend’s questions and suggested waiting. He said Frances didn’t need to go to the dentist until she turned three, and they should just see if the problem resolved on its own. Night after night, she listened to Frances’s snoring and worried about what that lack of oxygen was doing to the child’s developing brain. She can’t breathe through her nose.

Don't Look Back

But it can also be an enormous relief. My friend was so glad to be taken seriously, and to be able to investigate the cause of her daughter’s breathing troubles, she just knew. They were almost completely preventing little Frances from breathing through her nose. Frances’s adenoids have since been removed, and she is now breathing much easier. She no longer snores and sleeps much more soundly because of it. This is quite alarming because so many of these patients are medicated with stimulant drugs that can make sleeping even more difficult. But for kids, tired means wired. If you have young children or have been around young children up past their bedtimes, you know what I’m talking about. For example, my family and I recently got back from an overseas trip. My wife and I didn’t even have the energy to ask him to quiet down. And this was just from one night of interrupted sleep. It could be as simple as expanding the upper jaw or positioning the mandible forward.

Do Yourself A Favor

Imagine if a simple orthodontic device could save your child from a lifetime of medications! These children have a higher risk of developing social and psychiatric symptoms later in life, too, including delinquency, substance abuse, violence, antisocial behavior, and criminal activity. In an inconvenient twist of fate, when it comes to bullying, the mouth may be responsible for children who bully, and for the kids they pick on. In a study of 915 babies, those infants who slept less than 12 hours a day had twice the likelihood of being overweight when they were three years old. In another study of more than 8,000 children, those who slept less than 10.5 hours a night at age three had a 45 percent higher likelihood of becoming obese by age seven. Like bad teeth, obesity is a common reason why kids are teased and bullied. Medical histories revealed the presence of chronic indicators of abnormal sleep in all of the cases they studied. All cases demonstrated variable enlargement of upper airway soft tissues, and there were features consistent with a narrow, small nasomaxillary complex. As discussed earlier, because an infant’s life is dependent upon healthy breathing and a child’s brain is dependent on oxygen during its explosive growth, airway and sleep difficulties can have dramatic, sometimes irreversible, consequences for children. Like everything else, it’s always best to try to prevent snoring and sleep apnea, rather than waiting or treating it in adulthood. When signs of these problems surface in children, prompt treatment is crucial. All of this is connected.

Nobody Wins

Once those issues have been resolved, you can move on to tackling the breathing. Treatment options vary depending on root causes, but in general, the earlier you detect and treat problems, the easier, cheaper, and more effective treatments tend to be. Younger children are more susceptible to potential problems, but they are also more responsive to treatments. In some cases, maxillary expansion may be enough. In others, you may need to pursue a combination of orthodontic treatments. If they’re significantly enlarged or chronically infected, your health care professional may consider removal of the tonsils and/or adenoids. This can help correct the improper function of the tongue and facial muscles through exercises and instructions. These can help in severe cases. Children’s faces and mouths are still growing, which makes treating them fundamentally different from treating adults. Growth during treatment can be helpful, but it can also present some complications. Growth is helpful because we can modify or mold it as it happens. We can also retrain muscles and correct harmful habits much more easily when kids are young. It’s important that your doctors consider the developmental stage of the child and the future growth of tissues. Below are some examples of what each practitioner can do to help, though their roles may overlap or change depending on the individual case. They are often the first to notice symptoms. They can also take the lead in the coordination of care between the different specialists involved. They can order sleep tests and work with sleep physicians when they diagnose a sleep disorder. Pediatric dentists can also help the child build better oral habits. They can conduct sleep studies, observing patients during sleep to witness symptoms present firsthand. Yes, these are the things orthodontists think about. An expander is an orthodontic device that typically attaches to the upper teeth and gently expands the upper jaw over a few months. When an orthodontist uses it correctly, an orthodontic expander can create more space for the erupting permanent teeth and can reduce or remove the need for extractions, which helps keep the jaws wide and airways open. It can also help create broader, nicer smiles, widen the jaws, correct crossbites, and even help with correction of other bite issues such as underbites and overbites. It can increase the size of the airway by widening the palate, which, in turn, widens the nasal cavity and helps with breathing and sleeping.