Children suffer from several dental health issues. They are ranging from tooth decay to early tooth loss. Other oral conditions are lip sucking, tongue sucking, and lip-smacking. However, the 20 baby teeth will eventually be replaced with 32 permanent teeth. It is essential to take proper oral care for your child’s overall health and development.
Baby Bottle Tooth Decay
This condition is also known as nursing bottle syndrome. This occurs when a child is continuously in tight with sugary food elements. Food items loaded with lots of sugar like juices, sweet drinks, etc. are the cause of Baby bottle tooth decay. All these elements break down inside the mouth. As a result, it leads to the growth of bacteria. Bacteria feed on these sugar particles leading to tooth decay. Untreated tooth decay is the root cause of oral health problems.
Children were suffering from tooth decay, experience pain while chewing food. On the contrary, the baby teeth are the source of guidance for permanent teeth. Any damage caused to them affects the permanent teeth as baby teeth are the space savers for the permanent one. A damaged baby tooth can lead o a crooked permanent tooth in future.
Thumb sucking
In general, it is a widespread thing children’s do. Infants suck their thumb and fingers from a minimum age. The concept of thumb sucking gives children a sense of comfort and security. However, if this continues until the age of five or more, it might lead to a dental problem. The intensity, duration, and frequency of sucking might affect the teeth alignment. Your child might develop a protruded or line of teeth. Furthermore, this leads to other conditions like pronunciation problems. In addition to it, the upper and lower jaw becomes misaligned, leading to malformed mouth structure.
Tips to avoid thumb sucking
- The very first thing you need to remember is that thumb sucking is normal. Continuing after a certain age is something to worry about. If the habit turns out to be permanent, then it is a matter of concern.
- It is ultimately the child’s decision of giving up thumb sucking. You cannot forcefully ask the child to stop doing it.
- Encourage your child to concentrate on other things rather than sucking thumb.
- Thumb sucking being a security concern, so don’t make your child feel insecure at any point of time.
- Reward your child for small efforts. For instance, not sucking thumb for a day or two.
- Alternatively, you can also seek the help of the Pediatric Dentistry for better results.
- Allot a period for which they need to stop sucking their thumb. Give rewards after every successful trial. Gradually increase the period.
- Cover the fingers and thumb with band-aid or tape so that it reminds them of not sucking it.
- Take out the inch out of the mouth when the child falls asleep. Do not do this when they are awake. It might affect their sleep.
- Find out the reason behind thumb sucking if the child is older than six years.
- Use dental appliances to negate the condition.
- Consult the doctor if your child continues to suck the fingers or thumb.
Tongue thrusting
It is a common habit which most children experience in their childhood. They seal their mouth and thrust the tip of the tongue against their lips. This movement exerts enough pressure to cause a change in the upper jaw. It pushes the front teeth forward, resulting in misalignment. This, in turn, leads to a protruded upper jaw line. It also affects speech development in a child due to an overbite.
Tongue thrusting issues can be solved by simple consultation with a speech pathologist or pediatric doctors. There are treatment plans which will help your child abandon the tongue thrusting habit.
Lip sucking
Another common bad habit which eventually affects oral health is lip sucking. It is the process of holding the lower lip repeatedly beneath the front teeth of the upper jawline. It is quite similar to thumb sucking and often a natural substitute of it. The result of this habit is identical to those of tongue thrusting and thumb sucking. It is a treatable condition, and the steps applied are similar to thumb sucking.
Early tooth loss
The milk teeth are meant to lose, but after a certain point of time. Missing teeth at an early age is caused due to tooth decay. Apart from tooth decay, lack of space in the jaws and injury are some of the other causes. If your child is losing the milk teeth before permanent teeth appear, then that is not good. The nearby tooth can shift into the space of the broken tooth. As a result, when the new tooth appears, there is less space for it to grow fully. Owing to this condition, your child will end having a misaligned jawline. Consult a dentist as soon as your child experiences tooth decays and early tooth loss.
The above-mentioned dental conditions are pretty normal to experience for every child. You have to keep a note on whether these conditions are expanding beyond the limits. Seek help from pediatric dentists for solutions.