Intervene before your child’s teeth become Mal-aligned or Crooked

Orthodontics means straightening of teeth. It is the treatment required when one has a crooked set of teeth or mismatch in the size or position of jaws. The most common causes of malocclusion/crooked teeth are genetic inheritance, early or delayed loss of milk teeth, few habits like thumb sucking, tongue thrusting, and so on and so forth.

According to Dr (Prof) Keval Shah, Founder of Fine Feather Dental Clinics, the general perception about crooked teeth only affecting the smile, appearance, and self-esteem of the person is just a half-truth. The mal-aligned or crooked teeth cause much more damage to overall dental health, in the sense the way teeth come together during chewing, the transfer of chewing forces to the teeth and bone, the health of the gums around the teeth, and also the cleaning of the teeth becomes a problem. All these lead to a myriad of problems that can be avoided by having a harmonious set of teeth.

The old adage was to let all the permanent teeth erupt and then correct the mal-alignment. However, the new school of thought propagates early detection and a timely interception for overall improvement in facial growth, function, and smile in totality. This new trend is called “Interceptive Orthodontics”.

The problem with the old school of thought was, it was teeth-centric and did not take into account the growth of the jaws and the overall health of the oral cavity. Another drawback was that, as one would wait for all the permanent teeth to erupt before starting the treatment, the patient would have reached a stage whereby one cannot influence the growth of the jaws to compensate for the mismatch in the size of the teeth and jaws. As a result, to align the teeth, the Orthodontist would have to extract the sound, normal teeth and create space for the alignment. However, in the case of Interceptive orthodontics which can usually be started from the age of 7 to 8 years, one can influence the growth of the jaws and thereby increase or decrease the space as required for alignment of teeth. Thus timely intervention can save the normal sound teeth from being extracted. Also, the overall facial proportions can be remodeled to give a more aesthetic and pleasant appearance.

Our orthodontics specialist team has been using various interceptive Orthodontic techniques on children who are likely to have crooked teeth when they turn 12- 14 years of age. The team has been using twin block appliances for jaw lengthening, bluegrass appliances for habit breaking, rapid expansion appliances for arch expansion, etc., in various patients.

If your child has habits such as thumb sucking/ tongue thrusting, improper jaw growth, or extra-ordinarily bigger teeth size, you should consult the best Orthodontists who practice Interceptive Orthodontics. They will either eliminate the need for wearing braces or shorten the duration for which a child will have to wear the braces.

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