Dental Articles
Here is some useful information about dental health and care.
| Thumbsucking |
| Dental Articles - Children's Dentistry |
Thumb or fingers sucking is a common bahit of many babies and toddlers. It is pleasurable, can comfort them when stressed or tired, can help them to fall to sleep. Most of them will stop on their own or as peer pressure when they start school or when disconfort when their baby teeth getting loose.
Potential Problems:
In most cases there is little effect. If there is problems, it is depend on duration of habit, hours of sucking each day, force of sucking and the angle of the thumb in the mouth. Following are potential promblems:
- Bucked teeth - upper front teeth pushed out.
- Open bite - gap between upper and lower anterior teeth.
- Upper and lower lips can not close together.
- Mouth breathing.
- Narrow and distort upper jaw.
- Callauses, cracked or bleached on thumbs/fingers.
These problems likely correct themselves when the habit stop in time. If a child does not want stop the habit, we should not force or punish him or her.Once the child has the mental and maturity to understand the problems then they ready to break bahit.Following are gentle ways to stop thumb sucking.
Ways to stop thumb sucking.
- Most cases only needs positive reminding not to put the thumb in the mouth.
- Put Band-aid around the thumbs at time of the day the child likely to suck.
- For children that suck in bed,wear a oversized pyjama top with sewn up sleeve ends.
- For children that can't stop the habit at home need to see an orthodontist, where an special appliance is fitted on the upper jaw to block the comfortable position of the thumb in the mouth and remind the child to stop sucking.
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