helping you and your child live healthy
did you know your child's tongue posture
can be affecting their breathing their
sleeping even their performance at
school so what can we do to prevent this
and you might not even be aware of it
joining me now to discuss this dr. Gary
Myers with Meyers pediatric dentistry
and orthodontics thank you so much for
coming in thank you yeah we had this
discussion I had no idea you know even
what to look for necessarily when a
child is having breathing problems it's
something that has really taken off in
the adult world with sleep apnea being
such a big health problem and they've
started as they look at it to see
there's more and more that's happening
early in kids that naturally not
initially as a sleep apnea but it's more
sleep just our breathing or sleep
disordered breathing looking for as a
parent as a parent we want to look for
the dark circles under the eyes those
kind of I guess like when you stay up
too late as an adult you get the bags on
your eyes were looking for that you can
also see snoring at night open mouth
posture mouth breathing even bedwetting
night terrors clinching grinding and and
an ADHD not all ADHD but there's I think
I saw study a couple years ago that said
50% of the kids diagnosed ADHD are
actually probably sleep problems at
night so if something's very important
and a lot of kids may suffer from this
that are undiagnosed and one thing
clearly that there's a problem is when
they're breathing with their mouth open
versus with their mouth closed because
the tongue needs to be in the roof of
the mouth correct and the jaw when it's
back just a inch open blocks the airway
probably over half of the airway or more
and that shows on this graphic here
where the mouth on the left is closed
you have a good airway from those yellow
arrows and if they open just a little
bit imagine a child kind of cutely
snoring in their car seat or in the bed
mouth slightly open they've just blocked
that airway and we have a second image
that shows that a little more clearly as
well or you do see that opening bigger
when the mouth is in the proper posture
versus tighter when it's not and this
tics are the same kind of side x-ray and
and and makes the airway purple to make
a little more easy to see so you all can
help kids even as young as three with
the Healthy Start program with some
simple we've come across this program
it's called healthy start and it's
basically a trainer system we use those
for a while but this one is really
designed not just removing teeth which
is think of a trainer like an Invisalign
type we're familiar with that
less customized and more developing
growth versus just moving teeth and so
they've they have a few more things in
place such as some tongue ramps and some
other areas where they bring the jaw
forward almost like a sleep out in the
appliance would in a way that helps open
the child's airway and keep it open
while they sleep and also it can help
develop the jaws and and create some of
the malocclusions that we might see in
some of those okay and when you think
about your little one they're sleeping
in this as they're sleeping at nowhere
all day right right they're sleeping in
it and maybe some exercises for an hour
or so a day okay so it's not it's not
real hard but does take complaint does
take cooperation right having some good
parenting okay also let's see the other
image because you can see the damage
that you can actually do your teeth over
time if your fixes all of it if you're
not breathing well your muscles and your
mouth breathing your muscles are gonna
posture differently and it's gonna move
the teeth you're not gonna get the
identify sure development or the growth
and development that you want
so as this fixes the airway or helps the
airway improve it's also going to help
the muscles that then redirect the
growth to be more ideal and over a year
two years three years you begin to get
more normalized growth and therefore
shred your teeth interesting so that's
why we gotta get those kids in by the
year to the deck good
jimena me it's really the teeth we can
do that a number different ways to me
really it's the airway and the health
benefits the the school benefits i mean
think of all the challenges in school if
your child is not sleeping well i think
about when you went out you know you're
studying you know Benjen and stayed up
all night for three nights in a row your
brain doesn't work as well and kids have
that too
alright so certainly you wanna talk to
your doctor your dentists about this and
really get an assessment to see if your
child's having this issue so if you'd
like to learn more about myers pediatric
dentistry and orthodontics you can visit
their website it's tooth the number two
to calm and again we'll post all this
information on news for jack's calm
you'll find it under the live healthy
section