As parents, you have an incredible opportunity to support your child’s health from the very beginning – and that includes the way their jaw develops. Jaw development isn’t just about shaping a smile; it affects how your child breathes, sleeps, and even how well they can concentrate and learn. By understanding the impact of early jaw development and taking steps to encourage healthy habits, you can give your child a foundation for lifelong wellness. Starting early empowers you to help your child grow and thrive in every way.
Understanding the Importance of Jaw Development
Let’s start with why jaw development matters so much. When a child’s jaw grows properly, it allows them to breathe through their nose, which is the healthiest way to get oxygen into the body. Nasal breathing promotes optimal oxygen levels, helps regulate sleep, and supports better mental focus during the day. When kids are unable to breathe properly through their nose, they often shift to mouth breathing. This shift isn’t just unhealthy—it often leads to weak or dysfunctional jaw muscles that aren’t allowing the jaw to develop as it should.
Health Risks of Mouth Breathing
Mouth breathing is one of the first signs we look for as an airway dentist. It’s more than just an occasional habit; chronic mouth breathing can change how a child’s face and jaw develop. Kids who rely on mouth breathing may develop misaligned and crowded teeth as they grow. These children are also at a higher risk for issues like cavities, gum disease, and even sleep-disordered breathing.
Mouth breathing can start as early as infancy, and the sooner we catch it, the better. Often, oral dysfunction – such as a tongue that doesn’t rest properly at the roof of the mouth – can lead to these problems, so assessing the tongue and facial muscles is necessary even in young babies. Mouth breathing during sleep significantly affects sleep quality, especially in children. As we know, growth occurs primarily during sleep. If a child is not breathing properly through their nose, they may struggle to reach the deeper stages of sleep where growth hormone is released. This disruption can impact their overall growth and development. If we can address these issues early, we’re not just helping their jaws grow better; we’re setting them up for a healthier life.
Early Intervention Solutions
There are several effective, non-invasive ways to support early jaw development. We often encourage parents to consider baby-led weaning during infancy, as well as options like myofunctional therapy and airway-focused dental care as their child grows. These approaches can play a crucial role in promoting healthy jaw growth and setting children up for long-term wellness.
Baby-Led Weaning and Its Role in Jaw Development
Baby-led weaning, or BLW, is an approach where babies begin to self-feed solid foods around six months old, letting them explore different textures and flavors at their own pace. While it may seem like just a fun way to introduce foods, it’s also great for jaw development. When babies are encouraged to chew solid foods, they’re strengthening their jaw muscles, which supports proper jaw growth.
Myofunctional Therapy: Supporting Proper Muscle Function
Another tool in our early intervention toolkit is myofunctional therapy, which focuses on retraining the muscles of the face and mouth. This type of therapy can be especially helpful for kids who have developed oral habits like mouth breathing or improper tongue posture. Through simple exercises, myofunctional therapy helps children learn to keep their tongue in the right position, close their lips, and breathe through their nose.
Airway Dentists as Key Players in Jaw Development
Airway-focused dentistry takes an even more holistic look at a child’s growth. Our role as an airway dentist is to evaluate not only the teeth but the entire structure of the jaws and airway.
The best way to address mouth breathing is to focus on redirecting the muscles to their proper resting position and function. By guiding the muscles to work as they naturally should, we can stimulate jaw development and promote healthy nasal breathing patterns. Simply put, when the jaws grow to their full potential, children are more likely to breathe through their noses rather than their mouths. This kind of muscle correction is most effective between ages 3-12, when the jaw bones are still forming and growing. Early intervention during this period can make all the difference in building strong, functional jaw muscles and supporting healthy breathing habits.
Starting Early Prevents Future Problems
So why is it so important to start early? First, early intervention means we can often avoid more extensive orthodontic work later in life. By supporting natural jaw growth in the early years, we can reduce the need for braces and other treatments as your child grows.
Traditional orthodontic treatments like braces focus on straightening teeth but fail to address the root causes of jaw misalignment or breathing issues. Braces are a tooth-centered approach, but they don’t address the underlying problem: the development of the jaw. Braces treat the symptom of crowded teeth. Correcting jaw growth early on is far more effective than treating symptoms later.
Furthermore, a child’s brain undergoes rapid growth and development in the early years. By addressing jaw development, which directly impacts breathing and, consequently, sleep quality, we can help ensure the child doesn’t miss these critical years of brain development. Supporting proper breathing and sleep is foundational for their overall cognitive and physical growth.
Helping children develop healthy jaws and airways is one of the best investments we can make in their future health. By establishing exclusive nasal breathing and proper resting tongue posture early on in childhood we can guide the growth of the jaws and develop a healthy and functioning airway. This creates a healthy, happy child that grows into a healthier and happier adult!
Dr. Dmitry Dolgov is a highly skilled and compassionate dental practitioner specializing in holistic and functional dentistry. He grew up in Ohio and graduated from The Ohio State University with a Bachelor’s degree in Exercise Science. He then attended Western University of Health Sciences in California, where he earned his Doctor of Dental Medicine (DMD) degree. Dr. Dolgov also specializes in airway and sleep dentistry, examining the physiological function and form in regard to a patient’s development to assess for airway and sleep health. He is also a dental provider for Toothpillow, a preventative, pre-orthodontic system designed to correct and support proper jaw development, promoting nasal breathing and preventing many health problems.
