By Peter Saner, Clinical Director.

I had a couple of my grandchildren staying with me over the half term and they have reached the age when they are starting to have wobbly teeth and new adult teeth coming in. It reminded me first hand of what many parents are noticing at this stage which is that massive changes are coming as part of the growing up process. Parents often worry about the colour of the adult teeth as they are usually a lot darker than the deciduous (baby) teeth that they are replacing but what often becomes apparent is that these teeth are a lot bigger than the ones they replace and it is around this time that parents often notice that there is not enough room. The teeth often come in slightly twisted or in a funny place. What this is revealing is that the mouth is not developing to the size that it should to fit all the teeth. That nice set of tightly bunched baby teeth are about to become a crowded mess of adult teeth and you will wonder how that happened and what went wrong.

The answer is that there have been a number of forces acting on the mouth through swallowing patterns and breathing along with the traumas of birth and habits that have developed and these have together restricted growth in all sorts of ways. It’s only extremely rarely that the genetics have caused the problem although this is often the thing that gets the blame. The good news is that actually with the help of the dentist even at an early stage we can counteract those forces and encourage the mouth to develop to the size it was meant to be. Even better news is that these bones remodel throughout life so you can fix what wasn’t done when you were growing – it’s just better to do it when your body is in the mood for growing. This treatment is known as orthopaedic (or functional) orthodontics and there are many dentists around the world who prefer this way to approach the problem as it works with the way the body was designed rather than fighting against it.

In the past often the solution which has been offered is to amputate teeth to allow the remaining teeth to be aligned and while this may be a quicker and cheaper way to do it, you are not dealing with the underlying problem – plus it involves surgery and the removal of perfectly healthy teeth which in many cases is the first surgical encounter a child has had which is far from ideal. I often see adults who have had teeth removed in their teens with crowding developing all over again which is more than depressing.

If your children (or grandchildren) are developing a crowded set of teeth, here at Ferring Dental Practice we would be delighted to have a look and give you some advice on how and when is the best time to help them to develop the smile they were meant to have. Give us a call on 01903 246858.