The term “pacifier teeth” refers to a form of tooth misalignment that occurs when a child uses a pacifier for an extended period or engages in habitual thumb sucking. The continual sucking habit can disrupt the natural alignment of your child’s baby teeth, leading to problems such as overbite, open bite, and speech impediments.
Although pacifier teeth sometimes correct themselves, dental malocclusion treatment may be necessary in other cases.
At Ironwood Pediatric Dentistry, we treat pacifier teeth for our child patients. To determine if your child requires treatment for pacifier teeth, please call us at (480) 422-4544 to schedule an appointment with one of our pediatric dentists.
How Do Pacifier Teeth Happen?
In limited use, pacifiers can have some beneficial effects for your children and for you. This is particularly true during infancy: a pacifier can help a crying baby to self-soothe, reduce pain for a nursing infant, and even reduce the risk of losing your child to sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS.
Pacifier teeth can become a problem in cases of prolonged pacifier use. Constantly sucking on an object can ultimately interfere with natural tooth alignment. The more intense the sucking activity, the greater the potential for malocclusion problems to develop with your child’s teeth. This applies to pacifiers and to digit sucking habits.
Do Orthodontic Pacifiers Help Prevent Pacifier Teeth?
Some devices are marketed as orthodontic pacifiers based on their shape. Unfortunately, little evidence exists to suggest that these kinds of pacifiers prevent pacifier teeth because it is not the shape of the nipple but the duration and intensity of your child’s sucking habit that is the main determinant.
Your best chance to prevent the onset of pacifier teeth is to get your child off the habit of sucking on a pacifier or a thumb before this activity begins to contribute to teeth misalignment.
Can Pacifier Teeth Correct Themselves?
It is possible that a pacifier tooth condition can correct itself if pacifier use ends by the time your child reaches the age of three. This is when the permanent teeth begin to erupt.
However, once your child reaches four years of age, the risk of lasting teeth misalignment from a child’s pacifier habits increases, and self-correction becomes less likely.
Once malocclusion problems develop, such as overbite or crossbite, chances are that your child will need dental treatment to correct the issue.
How Can Orthodontic Treatment Fix Pacifier Teeth?
Your child’s pediatric dentist can help with pacifier teeth in two ways:
- First, through regular dental checkups, your dentist can identify potential bad pacifier habits or digit sucking problems early enough to help you intervene in a timely way and wean your child off pacifier use.
- Second, if a pacifier tooth problem develops, your dentist can prepare a suitable treatment plan to correct the misalignment problem before it becomes serious.
Detecting and correcting teeth misalignment before your child turns two years old increases the chances of self-correction. By the age of 4, the use of orthodontics may become the only practical solution.
Examples of orthodontic treatment for pacifier teeth include:
- Braces
- Clear aligners followed by retainers
- Tongue cribs
- Bite blocks
- Vertical pull chin cups
- High-pull headgear
Your child’s dentist and orthodontist can help you choose the best treatment plan if orthodontic appliances become necessary to treat teeth misalignment from pacifier teeth.
Call Ironwood Pediatric Dentistry About Pacifier Teeth
Pacifier habits can be beneficial up to age two, but after that, extended pacifier sucking can contribute to bite problems.
At Ironwood Pediatric Dentistry, we can help you to help your child transition away from pacifier use and thumb sucking habits in time to avoid the adverse effects of pacifier teeth.
If you believe that your child may already have a problem with overbite or open bite because of extended pacifier use or thumb sucking, we can help you take the steps needed to treat the problem so that it can self correct or, if that is not possible, use child orthodontics to help your child’s permanent teeth come in properly and to promote proper jaw alignment as your child grows.
Call us at (480) 422-4544 to schedule an appointment for your child with one of our experienced pediatric dentists. If you prefer, you can use our online contact form to do the same.
Don’t wait for a pacifier teeth problem to get worse. Call Ironwood Pediatric Dentistry today.