Did you know that pacifiers and thumb sucking can be detrimental on your babies?

Nonnutritive sucking habits such as pacifiers and thumb sucking can have a detrimental effect on growth and development, causing open bites, cross bites, and altered occlusion, which can lead to eating challenges, nutritional deficiencies, narrow airways, and sleep-disordered breathing.

Sleep-disordered breathing has symptoms like restless sleep, ADHD, delayed growth, increased infections, skin issues, nightmares, allergies, difficulty in school, and bed wetting. When a child’s airway becomes narrow and underdeveloped from non-nutritive sucking, a child will struggle to receive enough oxygen, especially at night, which can result in serious health issues.

Data shows that non-nutritive sucking activity (pacifiers, thumbs, fingers, etc.) rather than the type of feeding in the first months of life is the main risk factor for development of altered occlusion and open bite in primary (baby teeth) dentition. Children with non-nutritive sucking activity more than doubles the risk of issues. Breast feeding seems to have a protective effect on development of posterior cross bite in deciduous dentition.

Try to limit non-nutritive sucking habits as much as possible. If your child does use any of the non-nutritive modalities try to eliminate no later than 12-18 months and transition to a Miracle 360 cup to prevent early childhood malformations. If you see an open bite, cross bite or any crowding of the baby teeth set up a consult for us to help! In addition, if you have a child that doesn’t want to get rid of the pacifier or the thumb we can help as well!