Children’s tooth straightening / orthodontics

As the adult teeth come in, many children will find that there isn’t enough room to fit the teeth nice and aligned. 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 either nasal or mouth breathing, along with the traumas of birth, and habits that have developed. 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 approach to 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. 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.

Children’s tooth straightening or orthodontics can be the solution for anyone who is not happy with their smile or the way their teeth bite together.

We usually use custom made appliances to gently encourage the correct development of the mouth. The first stage is to assess the extent of the problem and to determine how much development is required, and how best to achieve that. Sometimes the swallowing pattern needs to be retrained so that we end up with a stable result.

There are usually two phases to the treatment, although these can sometimes overlap. The first is the correction of the development of the mouth, and then usually the teeth which have come through twisted or in the wrong place have to be moved into the right place using conventional orthodontic appliances.

The treatment is extensive, but, in all, the treatment usually costs between £7000 and £9000.