Children’s Oral Habits Can Affect Facial Growth, Says One Los Angeles, CA Braces - By: Atoosa Nikaeen

August 9, 2009 –LOS ANGELES AND SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA – There is a common perception among many people that crooked, crowded teeth and facial development problems are hereditary.

That isn’t always the case, according to Dr. Atoosa Nikaeen, a best Los Angeles, CA braces expert who treats young patients with unhealthy oral habits that can lead to future orthodontic and facial development problems.

Fortunately for parents and their children, various orthodontic treatments can help children break unhealthy oral habits or correct their effects before they become too advanced, said Nikaeen, who owns a Los Angeles, CA orthodontics practice.

Types of oral habits that may need correction include:

-Mouth breathing
-Prolonged sucking on pacifiers, the thumb or fingers
-Overactive lip muscles
-Tongue thrusting
-Nail biting

The jaw’s posture affects its growth, according to Myofunctional Research Co., a world leader in dental appliance technology. (http://www.myoresearch.com/cms/index.php?id=61,200,0,0,1,0). Children who breathe through their mouths can adversely affect how their jaws develop.

People who breathe through their mouths tend to develop long, narrow faces, so the earlier this problem can be corrected, the better, Nikaeen said. Mouth breathers also can develop TMJ disorder or soft tissue dysfunction.

Sucking on the thumb, fingers or a pacifier is common in early childhood development. But for children who don’t gradually outgrow this habit, future adverse dental effects can result.

For example, a normal upper arch forms when the tongue rests in the “roof” of the mouth because the tongue helps combat the pressure of the cheeks, which naturally push against the teeth and can push the upper arch of the jaws inward, according to the Myofunctional Research Web site. When a child does anything to force the tongue to drop from the roof of the mouth, such as thumb sucking or mouth breathing, the cheek muscles work over time to push the teeth in the upper jaw inward, creating crowding problems.

“The more intense and frequent the bad oral habits are, the greater the possibility of malocclusion,” Nikaeen said. One way of combatting the ill effect of thumb and finger-sucking is through the use of “orthodontic pacifiers.”

This type of pacifier is specially designed to replicate the shape of a mother’s nipple when flattened in the baby’s mouth and to support the shape of the baby’s palate and jaws as they develop, Nikaeen said. This scientific design also encourages the most natural sucking action to help proper oral development.

Tongue thrusting can lead to misaligned teeth by exerting more force on the backs of the teeth than is applied to the fronts of the teeth by the facial muscles. Conversely, overactive lips can cause teeth to tip inward if the tongue doesn’t provide enough force to combat it.

There is a variety of devices besides orthodontic pacifiers that orthodontists can use to correct poor oral habits in young children. These appliances are used before, during and after orthodontic treatment to correct the problems that lead to crowded, crooked teeth and malformed faces, Nikaeen said. The appliances sometimes serve as deterrents to the bad habits by taking away the pleasant sensation the child gets from, say, sucking his/her thumb.
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About Dr. Atoosa Nikaeen
Dr. Nikaeen graduated with honors from dental school in 1993 and received a doctorate in dental surgery (DDS). She gained experience practicing general dentistry for several years before attending Columbia University School of Dentistry and Oral Surgeons in New York, where she earned her post-doctoral education in orthodontics and received an orthodontic specialty certificate.

In addition to running her practice, Dr. Nikaeen is a faculty member at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) Orthodontic Department and teaches orthodontic residents.

Dr. Nikaeen’s Los Angeles practice serves patients throughout Southern California, including Beverly Hills and Santa Monica.

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