Do your upper gums display too much? An Orthodontist can advise you how to improve it.

This is very displeasing to the eye and is due to over eruption of the upper front teeth and jaw.  To make it look better, the upper teeth need to be intruded (pushed upward into their sockets), or the upper jaw may need to be pushed upward.  As the teeth move upward, the bone and gums remodel and the smile looks much nicer

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Is your child's chin receded (weak) in appearance? This is a challenging orthodontic problem.

Suprisingly, when the lower jaw is receded (backward), the upper jaw and teeth are also usually retruded (backward).  A retruded upper jaw can sometimes be recognized by the angle between the upper lip and the uperside of the nose being greater than 90 degrees.  If the child's bite requires it, the lower jaw can be advanced with an orthodontic bite advance.  Before the lower jaw is advanced with a permanently-attached orthodontic device, it may be necessary to advance the upper teeth with braces to a normal position first, which makes the overjet worse temporarily.

If an overbite is corrected in a growing child, it can make an improvement of half an inch in the forward chin position of the adult.  Tools used to correct short chins include various combinations of braces, elastics, jaw expanders, and semi-permanent orthodontic bite advancers.  Sometimes jaw surgery is warranted, to advance the lower jaw.

Are your child’s lips protrusive (stick out too far)? Get help from an orthodontist.

A certain amount of fullness of the lips is desirable in a child, because their

nose and chin will become more prominent as they mature.  Excessive fullness

of the lips is usually caused by the  teeth being too protrusive, forcing both lips

forward.  If the angle between the under side of the nose and the upper lip is

less than 90 degrees, it may mean the teeth are too forward.  There are

measurements that can be made on head x-rays or photos for evaluating lip

fullness, but parents’ and patient’s opinions are more important.

If they want the lips flatter, it is achievable, and if they like them the way

they are, that is important to recognize too.

If the lips are to be flattened, a common approach is to remove 4 bicuspids

(one from each quarter of the mouth) and retract the front teeth with braces. 

 The child can be referred to an orthodontist at any time after age 8, but generally

 treatment would not begin until age 12, when the permanent teeth have grown in.

Is your child’s chin too forward, or does the lower lip protrude in front of the upper lip? This is an orthodontic problem.

Around five percent of the population has an underbite, where the lower teeth are too forward compared to the uppers. It is easy to spot, because of the distinctive face appearance. It does not usually provoke teasing from the schoolmates, but rather is usually spotted and referred by dentists.

It is routine for orthodontists to treat underbites early, sometimes as early as age four, but more often at age eight after the permanent incisors have grown in. The reasons treatment is done early are that the teeth and face bones are more easily moved at a younger age, and it is easier to get a child to wear the necessary devices (braces etc.) at an earlier age. It is assumed that they will still need orthodontic treatment again in a second stage at age 12 or so, but the early treatment is felt to give them a result that would not have been attainable if they had waited.

Treatment of underbites will often involve upper jaw expansion in order to loosen the bone sutures, and simultaneous facemask headgear to pull the upper jaw forward. In eight-year-old children who wear the facemask 12 hours per night, underbites can be corrected in less than a year. They are sometimes overcorrected in anticipation of relapse and partial return of the underbite.

Years ago it used to be taught that underbites should not be treated until growth was complete (age 18), and then jaw surgery would correct the underbite. It is now preferred to treat children early while the sutures are immature, but with the understanding that two stages will be needed.

Does your child’s chin deviate to one side? An orthodontist is trained to look for this.

The usual reason the chin is not directly under the center of the nose is that it has shifted to one side in order for the upper

and lower teeth to fit together better, due to a narrowness of the upper jaw.  The upper jaw, being just a little too narrow,

does not bite well against the lower, so a slight shift of the lower jaw to the right or left makes the bite normal on one side

and full crossbite on the other, providing more tooth contact and a sense of stability.

 

If allowed to remain, the chin may permanently grow into that unsymmetrical position.  Orthodontists are usually quite

alert to this occurrence and recommend widening the upper jaw immediately.  Once the upper jaw is widened sufficiently,

the lower jaw will usually seek equilibrium with it and the chin re-centers itself.  The widened upper jaw is best maintained

with a holding wire for an extended time, since the cause of the narrow arch may still exist.

An orthodontist invites you to look. Does your child’s chin pucker in order for the child to close their lips together?

It is common for the upper incisors to protrude. When a child swallows, the lips normally come together to form a seal,

but this seal is hard to achieve if the upper teeth protrude excessively.  The chin muscle then puckers in order to push the

lower lip up far enough to meet the upper lip, and the resulting facial expression is somewhat unattractive.

 

The  puckering of the chin muscle in order to extend the lower lip up to form a lip seal causes the lower lip muscle

to increase in size.  This increase in bulk of the lower lip will cause crowding of the lower incisors.  It can be avoided

by referral to an orthodontist experienced in treatment of young children. Treatment may include expansion of the jaws

to reduce the incisor protrusion. Or treatment may consist of correcting the incisor protrusion by advancing the lower jaw. 

 Sometimes removal of 2 or 4 teeth is desirable.  The faces created are better than if untreated and the stability of the

results is remarkable once correct jaw posture and tongue posture have been created.

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Do the upper front teeth protrude beyond the lips, or is the lower lip behind the upper incisors, or does the lower lip curl downward? Time to see an Orthodontist.

Protruding incisors are at risk for being fractured or knocked out by any of the common activities and accidents of childhood.  Even if they somehow avoid damage, they can be the object of considerable teasing from other children.

A common cause for protruding upper incisors is thumb or finger sucking, which if done long enough will make the upper front teeth flare forward and will tip the lower front teeth backward. 

 

Most children stop thumb/finger sucking once they get into the social pressure environment of school, but if they have already created a deformity in tooth position with the thumb, the deformity will be maintained even after stopping the thumb habit by the tongue protruding into the anterior open bite, and worse, the lower lip parking behind the upper incisors will push them even further forward horizontally.

Most parents are aware of the chili pepper sauce on the thumb regimen, but it does not always work well.  Another treatment involves taking a sock, folding its top down and sewing it into a channel through which is passed a shoestring to be used as a drawstring, and the sock is tied onto the hand at bedtime (sometimes both hands have to be so covered, individually).  For younger kids, the sock can have a face drawn or sewn onto it and the sock can become a personality, such as “Mr. Wizard,” who helps the child.  The sock prevents the thumb or any finger from being extended to be sucked.  It takes considerable discipline from the parent to do this every night for several months (and possibly daytimes after school), but it can work, especially for the child who only sucks at bedtime.

Another fun therapy that can be piggybacked onto that one (or which can stand alone) is to play a game where any day and night that no thumbsucking happened, a happy face sticker is put onto a calendar, and 5 happy faces in a week earns a trip to 31 Flavors, and 25 happy faces in a month earns a trip to Chuck E. Cheese with a friend!

 

A tried-and-true orthodontic therapy, for those who need it, is to place a permanent wire screen device in the mouth, soldered to bands which are cemented to the upper molars, and which forms a physical barrier to keep the thumb and fingers out and to keep the tongue from protruding forward.  It must be left for several months, because if removed too soon the habit has been seen to return.  While the device is in place, the front teeth will usually erupt and the open bite will usually close.  If the upper incisors are flared severely forward, they may need a brief period of braces to upright them, but care must be used not to tip them back into the unerupted permanent canines.