There’s nothing wrong with your child using a pacifier… until they are two years old. After this time, the child may develop oral problems, especially biting. Should you use a pacifier or not?
This is the question… It calms them when they cry and helps them fall asleep, but after 24 months it can cause oral problems in children.
When the pacifier is introduced and the baby sucks in a non-nutritional way, since the objective is not to feed, the lower central teeth gradually deviate inwards, while those that are in the same plane but in the upper jaw tend to separate and protrude outwards, causing what is known as an open bite, as warned by the Spanish Society of Orthodontics (SEDO).
Prolonged and continuous use of a pacifier can also cause a crossbite, where the upper teeth go inside the lower ones and act as a brake on the development of the upper jaw.
However, if we stop using the pacifier before the age of two, the teeth will reposition themselves within a few months because there will be no malformations of the temporomandibular joint or significant bone deformations that modify the definitive dental arch.
Tips for the proper use of pacifiers Apart from limiting their use to 24 months of age, other recommendations to avoid problems in the baby’s oral development are: – Use the pacifier as a method to avoid thumb sucking, which has more serious consequences, such as deformations of the palate or displacement of the incisors. – Do not use the pacifier to delay a meal, much less by sucking it with sugar or honey since these substances can cause early childhood caries.
If malocclusions are not corrected early, both those caused by bad habits and those caused by genetic predisposition, the child may develop a malocclusion.
For example, an open bite can evolve into a skeletal open bite, which is difficult to solve in adulthood without resorting to surgery.
On the other hand, a crossbite can lead to asymmetrical growth of the face.
For this reason, at Clínica Cervera we recommend that you take your child for a check-up with the pediatric dentist from the age of three, an age at which there will be time to carry out interceptive treatments before the permanent teeth erupt.