How do crooked teeth affect a child?
All parents want their children to be self-confident, happy, healthy, and get the best out of life. If your child has crooked or misaligned teeth, it can prevent your child from experiencing these things above, so it important to understand the effect of crooked teeth on a child’s life.
Crooked teeth can make your child smile less and reduce his/her self-esteem, but as you read on you will understand crooked teeth in children and possible treatment options like London based Kids braces to help your child.
What causes crooked teeth?
Crooked teeth can occur in both permanent and baby teeth. Crooked baby teeth may result from different reasons like tooth decay, trauma, or baby teeth gradually shifting close to themselves. However, having crooked baby teeth does not guarantee crooked permanent teeth.
The following reasons can cause crooked baby teeth.
- Misaligned jaw
- Facial injury
- Heredity and genetics
- Poor dental care or nutrition
- Poor my functional habits
How does having crooked teeth affect your child?
Sometimes, crooked teeth result in complications that may affect your child’s quality of life. For instance, the crooked teeth may cause your child pain when he/she tries to, which prevents proper chewing of food.
Crooked teeth can prevent your child from smiling often because he/she is trying to hide the teeth. It can also reduce his/her self-esteem. The effect of crooked teeth on your child is in the two categories, discussed below.
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Psychological effect
Having crooked teeth can make your child withdraw from his/her friends and children in their age bracket because he/she is trying to hide the crooked teeth. This may result in fewer social activities which is a vital part of a child’s life.
Sometimes, the child may become self-conscious and begin to seek answers to explain the cause of the crooked teeth. Research on the relationship between children’s teeth appearance and social interactions has shown that having a perfect set of teeth helps children interact more and increases their self-confidence.
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Physical effects
When your child has straight teeth, it makes cleaning the teeth easier, and there is less space to accumulate plaque, but with crooked teeth, your child will find brushing and flossing difficult, which leads to poor dental hygiene. Subsequently, the child will experience dental issues like tooth decay and gum disease.
Dental issues resulting from crooked teeth
Your child may experience the following dental issues if he/she has crooked teeth.
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Periodontal disease
Difficulty in cleaning crooked teeth causes tooth decay and gum disease, which may cause periodontitis if left untreated. Periodontitis is a severe infection that causes teeth and surrounding bone damage.
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Improper digestion and chewing
Crooked teeth make it difficult to chew food, leading to problems with digestion.
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Speech difficulties
Crooked and misaligned teeth can affect the pronunciation of certain sounds which may cause speech difficulties.
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Excess wear
Crooked teeth are associated with chronic headaches, cracked teeth, and jaw strain resulting from excess wearing and tearing down in the jaw muscles, gums, and teeth.
If you notice your child is developing crooked teeth, do not hesitate to book an appointment with your orthodontist to examine the teeth. It is usually easy to correct crooked teeth in children because their jaw is still malleable.
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