Dr. Katie To explains how the first seven years shape lifelong oral health. Tongue-tie in infants can go unnoticed and disrupt feeding. Early palate expansion between ages 2 and 5 corrects narrow airways and costs a fraction of later orthodontic work.
What you don't know about your child's oral health could shape their entire health over their lifetime. The window for kids, the birth to 7, this is the window that changes everything. Birth to 2, the tongue function, it talks about latching. If they have a tongue tie, they're going to have a hard time eating. A lot of times that is necessary to have releases. That's something that birth to 2, you really need to be looking at that because tongue ties are often missed at this age. People are already just, especially new parents, are already just trying to figure out, okay, how do I deal with this extra little person here? And then 2 to 5, jaw growth is rapid. Mouth breathing Teething and palatal development are really important. Oral habits are pretty active. Some children are— have a thumb habit, a finger habit, and you may have seen people who have— little kids will have two thumb— two fingers in their mouth, and it'll flare their baby teeth a little bit. If you catch problems early, it really is easier to work with the growth pattern, especially for orthodontics. We do interceptive type of procedures that patients can— if they have a narrow palate, we can expand them so they get enough air. And this slide says catching it early at a fraction— it costs less and a fraction of what they would cost if it was 35, or in my case, over 50.
