Dr. Katie To explains how mouth breathing reshapes children's faces. When kids breathe through their mouth, the tongue drops, narrowing the palate and shrinking the airway. This causes dental crowding, teeth grinding, and snoring. Watch for open-mouth posture and audible breathing during sleep.
What to look for for the parents out there. When something restricts it, when a child breathes through their mouth and the tongue drops low, that is what shapes the forces of that reshape the jaws. The palate will stay narrow and then the teeth run out of room. And this room has got really high ceilings, a lot of airflow through the room, and the teeth run out of room if the palate stays narrow. The airway behind the palate stays small. And so the patient can't get enough air and you'll see grinding. Snoring, that thing. You see your child walking around with their mouth open, definitely check their nose to see, hey, can they breathe through my nose, through their nose or not? This is definitely a thing that will reshape their palate and cause them to have issues with their sinuses. And then if you leave the mouth breathing too long, you'll have this really narrow palate that's got a really high vault, and that's the body trying to get some type of relief, and that is the airway there. We like to have a very wide palate. With a lot of room in there for the air to go. What to look for the parents out there: if you have any snoring or any audible breathing during sleep, that's definitely a sign that you need to have your child's airway evaluated.
