While not every child is going to need early orthodontics treatment, the ones that do end up needing it will need it badly. Having a young child grow up with ailments such as crowded teeth, crooked teeth, or gaps will not only impact their physical appearance, but also their overall health.
If you want to have these problems caught early before your child’s teeth start to grow in, you will need to come and see an orthodontist to have them perform early orthodontics treatment. There are two different types (or phases) that an orthodontist can treat your child with, especially if their health is put in jeopardy due to the problems in their mouth.
Early (Phase 1) Orthodontic Treatment
This treatment is designed to help children who have their primary teeth, and problems with the primary teeth can prevent the growth of their permanent teeth. Even if the growth is not prevented, the alignment of permanent teeth can still be altered as well. Depending on how your child’s mouth looks, there are three different types of treatment.
The first is using a palatal expander. This device widens the upper jaw and helps to create more space in your child’s mouth, all while being completely painless to the child. The expander is very easy to use, and will give the orthodontist enough space to keep working within your mouth.
Partial Braces also help to deal with crooked teeth, and are put on the upper and lower front teeth to provide early correction. Then back brackets on the molars are anchored to the back teeth to help the front teeth get pulled in line.
Finally, a retainer helps to hold your teeth in place and are often used after braces so your teeth can continue to remain where they need to be.
What Is Looked For During Early Orthodontic Treatment?
If an orthodontist or general dentist looks at your child’s jaw and sees that the alignment is off, then they will often recommend an orthodontic treatment to treat these problems. Problems that can be treated include bite complications, a narrow jaw, protruding teeth, and malocclusion.
This could mean that they need braces or Invisalign for kids, and that will move them to phase two of the orthodontic treatment.
Phase Two Treatment
This treatment combines both the straightening of the teeth and also some physical changes to the jaw and face. After phase one helps the jaw develop and allows for the teeth to erupt naturally, the teeth are monitored. Even though the eruption of the teeth has occurred, they are not in their final positions.
The process of the teeth is monitored, and then the orthodontists move onto phase two. Phase two makes sure that every single tooth has a place in the mouth, and that all of those teeth are in harmony with the lips, tongue, cheeks, and jaw. At this time, the dentists will look at your records and the treatment plan they created. They will often give full upper and lower braces for kids, and then they wait until all of the permanent teeth have erupted.
Braces are placed on the teeth for around two years, followed by wearing retainers for a while to further improve your smile.
Advantages Of Early Orthodontic Treatment
One of the biggest benefits of catching potential orthodontic treatments early is that you can easily map out how permanent teeth take shape. There’s a very big difference between what dentists can do when they catch problems early and what they can do whenever they are caught late.
Early orthodontic treatment can correct problems with the jawbone and jaw bites. If your child has an overbite, crossbite, or underbite it can be very debilitating to their daily life. In some cases it can even be painful, and no one wants that at all, especially for a child. If the early orthodontic treatment is successful, then the jaw can easily be modified to be more normal and can reduce the effect of a ‘bite’ down to almost nothing.
Guiding the jaw can also be a way to help bring in the permanent teeth, even if the primary teeth are still in place. Once those primary teeth fall out, then the permanent teeth can come in and will get into place perfectly without any more problems for your mouth.
Advantages With Cleaning
Finally, while most of the advantages of the early orthodontic treatment are focused around the alignment of the teeth and jaw, there are benefits to their overall health as well. Teeth that are properly aligned are much easier to be cleaned, and this reduces the risk of tooth decay and gum disease.
Teeth that are crowded are often cleaned improperly, and then that leads to gum disease, tooth decay problems, and a host of other issues. There are ways to attempt to clean crowded teeth and gums, but it is much easier to make sure that the teeth are perfectly straight so they can be cleaned easier.
Get Your Child Checked For Orthodontic Problems
There’s never too early a time to go to the dentist, and you should have your child’s mouth exam done as soon as you can. Being too late with a check for orthodontic problems means that they won’t be prepared for and taken into account. Then your child will need to deal with surgeries and expensive braces just to get their mouths back to normal.
Having an Orthodontic check makes it much easier for your dentists to prepare for problems that might come up in your child’s mouth. Invisalign Philadelphia is something that allows for you to handle orthodontic problems in a painless and very easy way. The more that you and your dentists can prepare for them, the faster they can be fixed. Then your child can get back to having fun and showing off their beautiful smile to the world. That’s always a sight to see, so make sure to get their mouths screened for problems early.
