When you realise that your children’s teeth are not growing properly, they may be crooked, or far apart, or overlapping. The first thing you think about, rightly so, is to contact a dentist for a thorough examination.
Visits to the dentist are actually necessary from a young age even without visible problems. This is to teach children the correct way to keep their teeth clean, first of all, but also and more importantly as prevention for the future.
Braces have been a primary tool in orthodontics for years, especially in paediatric and adolescent ages, in order to correct not only the aesthetics of the teeth, but to avoid or limit problems that could arise, which could include a wide range of disorders: poor posture, chewing problems, sudden headaches, neck pain, and more.
You don’t think about it very often, but one problem that orthodontic treatment can solve is related to breathing. Even if your child’s teeth look like they are in the right place if you notice that he or she often breathes with his or her mouth open, at night as well as during the day, during meals, after running and so on, the problem could be in his or her mouth.
How could that be? Amongst the various causes of incorrect breathing involving only the mouth, there could be a particularly narrow palate, which does not allow adequate positioning of the tongue or an open front bite. These are problems that can be solved with braces, which, contrary to what we might mistakenly think, are not only used to make teeth look good. On the contrary, braces align the teeth, the upper and lower palate, and help the jaw close correctly. They will help avoid dental malocclusions and, by slowly reshaping the facial muscles and the position of the tongue, will favour natural breathing through the nose.