Thumb-, Pacifier-Sucking
Affects Toddlers' Teeth
Excerpt By Charnicia E. Huggins, Reuter's Health

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Too much pacifier- and thumb-sucking after age 2 can lead to persistent dental problems in preschoolers, according to an Iowa researcher.

"The sooner that a child can stop a sucking habit, the better," Dr. John J. Warren, of the University of Iowa, told Reuters Health.

Warren followed 372 children from birth to 5 years of age. The sucking habits included both nutritive sucking--such as during breast-feeding--and non-nutritive sucking, which would include pacifiers and thumb-sucking.

Overall, children who sucked on pacifiers for more than 2 years after birth were more likely than their thumb-sucking peers to have wider dental arches in their lower jaw, Warren reported in the American Journal of Orthodontics and Dentofacial Orthopedics.

Normally, when a person bites their teeth together, the upper teeth protrude farther than the lower teeth, he explained. However, the children's intense sucking caused the cheek muscles to pull the upper jaw inward, making it narrower, and pushed their tongue down, making their lower jaw wider.

On the other hand, children who sucked on their thumb or other fingers for more than 2 years were more likely to have front teeth that stuck out too far, ending up in an overbite.

Both groups of children had open bites toward the front of their mouths, meaning that there was an abnormal space where the upper teeth usually overlap onto the bottom teeth.

The strong sucking, particularly thumb- or other finger-sucking, "forces their teeth apart," he said.

The changes were evident even in children who stopped sucking on a pacifier or their fingers by 2 or 3 years of age--a finding that "would make one reconsider when to recommend habit cessation," according to Warren.

The ideal time for children to give up their sucking habit is by 24 months of age, he said. Noting that the thumb-sucking habit is particularly hard to stop, however, he said, "it is best not to let that even get started."

In other findings, breast-feeding during the first year of life did not seem to have any effect on the children's teeth.

SOURCE: American Journal of Orthodontics and Dentofacial Orthopedics 2002;121:347-356.

Reference Source 89

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