Methods of correcting the wrong bite in a child

The correct bite is very important for a person, because with pathology the load on the most “loaded” teeth increases significantly, which is fraught with loss of teeth. In addition, the pathological bite changes the appearance of the face, it may even interfere with the child's normal chewing and talking. It is worth more to understand the methods of correcting the wrong taste in a child.

Pathology does not develop immediately, it is formed in several stages:

• Newborn This period of time is characterized by the complete absence of teeth in an infant, but an experienced orthodontist is already able to determine how incisors and molars will be located. The lower jaw of the newborn is located slightly behind, and this is quite normal.
• The appearance of the first milk teeth. As soon as the first teeth begin to appear in the infant, the lower jaw becomes noticeably flattened. A little later, the teeth on top (most often it is the incisors) begin to cover almost the lower teeth by almost half.
• Alignment of milk teeth. At this stage, it is considered normal if the baby has gaps between non-permanent teeth and the hillocks are erased. This process is smooth, gradual and is usually considered completed by six years. By this age, the bite becomes almost straight (the upper teeth no longer cover the lower jaw).
• Changing milk to indigenous. This process in all children proceeds with different intensity, but usually it lasts up to 11-12 years. During this time, the milk teeth fall out, instead of them grow permanent, indigenous. Normally, the upper teeth begin to cover the lower teeth, but not more than one third of the crown size. Cleft and crevices between the teeth should not be observed normally.

The formation of a pathological bite is usually a whole set of reasons for which there was no proper development. Most often, experts say about the hereditary factor - if one of the parents bites far from ideal, then the child has all the chances to face the same problem.

Incorrect bite may be due to the fact that milk teeth for some reason (for example, due to a dental disease) have been removed early. Belated, late dentition is also a cause for concern. It may well cause the formation of pathological bite.

An incorrect bite can be found in a child who has been fed for too long with soft food, in a baby who suffers from frequent diseases of the ENT organs (for example, with adenoids, the bite changes significantly). The reason may be too long sucking nipples, pacifiers. The cause of the pathology can also be a bad habit of sucking fingers.

Many orthodontists tend to think that bite problems in a child begin in the womb, because the formation of the jaw and all its components takes place long before birth. It is believed that anemia of the future mother, metabolic disorders in her body, acute viral infections during the first trimester of pregnancy are considered to be those factors that adversely affect the formation of the jaw bone skeleton of the fetus.

Do not underestimate the role of proper nutrition. - if in the body of a newborn, the baby does not have enough calcium and fluorine, the risk of developing bite pathologies increases tenfold.

Cosmetic defect, which in one degree or another becomes noticeable if the child has the wrong bite - only the tip of the iceberg. More serious consequences of pathology lie in the fact that the main function of the teeth is disturbed. The child begins to chew the wrong food, which often leads to diseases of the stomach, liver, pancreas, intestines at an early age.

Bite affects the purity and quality of speech. With pathology, the child may begin to suffer from speech defects, and this will prevent him from communicating normally with his peers. Hence the roots of severe psychological problems in the early school or older school age.

Children with an incorrect bite increase the risk of developing periodontal disease, their teeth are more vulnerable, many children are deprived very early due to excessive wear and irregular loading - implantation is required.

It is customary to evaluate the final state of the bite after the change of non-permanent milk teeth to the root ones. Normally, the upper jaw protrudes slightly forward (one third of the length of the crown, not more), the teeth on the top have close contact with the lower ones. There are no large gaps and crevices between the teeth, there should be no extra and unpaired teeth either.

A correct and healthy bite has several varieties, all of which are considered variants of the norm. Abnormal bite is more diverse on the manifestations:

• Distal. This is the most common bite disorder, which is diagnosed in babies with non-permanent teeth, and in children with indigenous ones. The upper jaw protrudes substantially, the ratio of all teeth is impaired. At the same time, the upper jaw itself can often be developed to a greater extent than the lower jaw.
• Mesial With this pathology, the lower jaw is pushed forward. It is usually developed stronger than the top. A child with such a bite looks somewhat belligerent - the chin is pushed forward, the upper lip falls slightly.
• Open. With this pathological bite, the teeth are closed completely. This is considered the most difficult pathology.
• Deep. Due to the development of such a pathology, the upper incisors cover the lower teeth by more than a third the size of the crown. This is a very common type of pathological bite among children.
• Cross. About such a bite say, when the upper and lower jaws are displaced relative to each other horizontally. The face of a child with such a pathology looks asymmetric, the problem needs a long correction from an early age.

An experienced orthodontist can even suggest whether there is a risk of developing an abnormal bite, check the condition of the upper and lower jaws in newborns. However, in practice this is usually not an urgent need. Therefore, many parents turn to this specialist in the direction of a dentist, who, during a routine or unscheduled examination, discovers this or that bite pathology in a child.

The orthodontist conducts anthropometric research and ascertains whether there is asymmetry of the face. After that, the doctor makes molds with each jaw, and plaster models are cast on them in the laboratory. According to him, the doctor can say with great accuracy (up to a millimeter) which teeth and how displaced, whether there is a twist, where the most problematic places are located.

An x-ray gives you the opportunity to find out what is inside the gums - how the teeth are formed, how the root canals are located. Only then the doctor checks how a small patient develops chewing, how pathology affects speech, if the bite does not interfere with free breathing.

A separate discussion deserves the question of at what age should the child be led to an orthodontist's appointment. Some say that it is better to do this in 5-6 years, when the teeth begin to change to permanent ones. However, experts warn that noticeable malocclusion in a child of an earlier age is not a reason not to go to the doctor. The sooner the correction begins, the better: while there is an active growth, the problem is corrected much faster and more efficiently.

Bite correction is usually quite a long and laborious exercise. In modern medicine uses several basic methods that allow you to cope with the problem:

• hardware treatment;
• Maxillofacial Surgery;
• myotherapy;
• combined methods (when using several methods at once - for example, using devices after surgery);
• non-surgical treatment.

What method to choose - decides orthodontist (according to the results of the survey). What is the essence of these methods is worth telling in more detail:

Special devices well help to cope with the wrong bite in children. Such devices can be removable and non-removable, as well as mechanical, guides and acting. Mechanical is an apparatus of England and any bracket system. Guide vanes are mouthguards and linings through which biting occurs. The operating devices with the help of artificial obstacles protect the teeth from pressure on the muscles of the cheeks. These include Schoncher records.

Removable plates are usually used to ensure that the teeth grow more evenly under the pressure of the arms, but this is only a correction of the position of the jaws relative to each other. The inclination of the teeth plate does not have a pronounced effect.

When the karapuz teeth are twisted, instead of the plates the orthodontist will offer to install a bracket system. When pain or changes occur in the temporomandibular joint, a special silicone tire is recommended for the baby, which fits tightly on the tooth rows and fixes them in a more or less normal physiological position. The tire allows all nearby muscles and ligaments to "relax", relaxes them. From the point of view of modern medicine, the most effective are such dental trainers (silicone removable devices).

Whatever apparatus was assigned to the child, parents should be prepared for the fact that the treatment will be long. For example, braces are worn for at least 1.5-2 years, and removable plates and mouthguards need to be worn not only during the day for a couple of hours, as many do. Have to wear them almost all the time. Only such a responsible and consistent approach to therapy (as well as patient attitude to the treatment process) will help to cope with the problem of improper bite once and for all.

This is a very popular method of pathological bite correction in the practice of orthodontists. It is a technique of specific gymnastics, which is aimed at the activation and development of certain maxillofacial muscles and muscle groups involved in articulation, chewing, making facial movements.

This method is usually used for babies with non-permanent teeth - from 3 to 6 years. In older age, myotherapy does not show the desired efficacy as an independent method.

An orthodontist prescribes an individual set of exercises for each small patient, which directly depends on the type and degree of pathology.Exercises such as compressing the teeth one by one (upper jaw forward, lower back, then vice versa), tightly compressing two jaws, tight lips, holding a light flat object with a ruler or sheet of paper are most often practiced. There is also a set of exercises for the tongue and cheeks.

Myotherapy will also require great patience and diligence from parents and children, because the exercises will need to be performed systematically, as the muscles get used to the load, increasing this load and the duration of this “charging” to a feeling of muscle fatigue in the masticatory and facial muscles.

Surgical intervention in the correction of bite in children is not so often required, but sometimes (especially in cases of complex congenital anomalies), the surgeon’s scalpel cannot do. Operations are aimed at shortening the arcs or lengthening them, and sometimes even at resizing the chin.

Surgical intervention is usually shown only to adolescents who were not helped by other methods (braces, plates, mouthguards). Children in 2-3 years of operation try not to do - because of such intervention may cause injuries.

Rehabilitation after such an operation is long and painful enough for the child, the risk of infection is high, which is why they try to reject surgical correction in favor of longer, but more benign correction methods.

Correction of the distal bite is very long. It may take several years. Moreover, such a pathology is often complicated - signs of a deep bite are added to it. I am glad that the treatment started in childhood usually proceeds faster and brings the desired effect. The most common method is the installation of removable devices and simultaneous classes of myotherapy.

To correct this pathology in children under 6 years old appointed a large amount of solid food. It is the hard green apples and crackers that help the tooth rows get closer to normal. There is no other treatment for up to six years.

When the child turns six, if the crackers and drying did not help, the doctor selects the necessary apparatus for the child (removable mouthguards, hard or soft plates, silicone trainers).

When such a pathological bite is detected in childhood, the child is prescribed to carry a mouthguard or silicone trainer. If the degree of pathology is significant, then the child may be assigned to wear special orthodontic hats with support for the chin. If these methods fail, a few lower teeth can be removed.

In the same way as in other pathologies of the maxillofacial apparatus, myo-therapeutic gymnastics is prescribed.

For babies with such a bite defect, the doctor usually immediately assigns the wearing of devices (mouthguards or trainer made of silicone). At the same time, the doctor teaches the parents of the baby miogymnastics. An open-bite child needs to eat hard food. Classes with a speech therapist in preschool or primary school age are required.

The following recommendations should be considered:

• Even if the child has no visible problems with his teeth., visit the dentist preferably at least once a yearstarting at the age of one. This will help not only in time to eliminate all the emerging inflammatory foci, but also in a timely manner to identify incipient occlusion and begin to correct them. The sooner this happens, the more effective the treatment will be.
• It is necessary to treat all respiratory diseases in time.that lead to a violation of nasal breathing - to treat or remove adenoids, to prevent chronic rhinitis. The habit of breathing through the mouth not only contributes to SARS, but also leads to the formation of a pathological bite.
• Young children need on the testimony of a doctor necessarily give vitamin DSince rickets, which can develop due to a lack of this vitamin in the body, affects the condition of the maxillofacial bones.
• Need to be timely abandon pacifiers and bottle feeding. If the baby already has milk teeth, it does not need a nipple. Ideally, after a year the child should drink from a cup, and at the age of one and a half, you should completely part with the soother. This will significantly reduce the risk of developing the wrong bite.
• It is important to ensure that the child in the period of growth was sufficient calcium in the body. In case of deficiency, you should definitely consult with a pediatrician and start taking calcium supplements.
• A child who already has several milk teeth may well try hard food. Excessive parental care, which causes them to grind and mash all the food, can play a cruel joke on the health of the baby.
• The habit of thumb sucking or the whole fist should nip on the vine. There is nothing useful in it, but it affects the bite negatively.

See how to fix the wrong bite in the next video.