Why is Early Treatment Orthodontic Important?
With most people realising the importance of orthodontic treatment at an older age, many parents do not consider the option for their children when they are still young – thinking that ‘the phase will pass.’ Unfortunately, once your child has trouble with their bite or the development of their jaw, the situation can only get worse as your child grows. Ideally, we recommend that you visit the dentist from the time your child’s first teeth start to sprout. This is to asses if your child may need orthodontic treatment.
Being in the dental industry for years and seeing successful outcomes first hand, we advise patients that children see a dentist by 7 years old. The orthodontist will assess your child’s teeth, jaw development and spacing before deciding if orthodontic intervention is needed. Once treatment begins, we are in a position to monitor and influence your child’s oral development.
Phase one treatment
Early treatment usually begins after you child’s first four front erupted and before all permanent teeth sprouts.
Orthodontic treatment can start from as young as seven years old and we can use our treatment option to:
· Correct the jaw growth
· Eliminate crowding by making space for more teeth to erupt
· Influence of facial symmetry
· We try our best to reduce the need for tooth extractions
· Reduce the possibilities of chipping teeth
· Reduce the appearance of gaps
What is the goal of early orthodontic treatment?
· Also known as phase one, early orthodontic treatment corrects problems like an underbite, overbite
· The treatment also influences your child’s jaw growth which helps with face symmetry
· Most children will have a few of their permanent teeth coming in at this age. The treatment will help eliminate crowding and make room in your child’s mouth for the permanent teeth that have yet to sprout.
What does the treatment plan entail?
Orthodontic appliances like braces are fixed to your child’s upper or lower teeth and sometimes both. To help the patients biting position, your child may be required to use extenders or space maintainers during the phase one process. The treatment can last up to 18 months long before your child goes onto phase two in order to complete the orthodontic treatment process.
Phase two aims at correcting permanent teeth that that sprouted only after phase one was completed.
So what is Phase II Treatment (Second Phase)?
As we said earlier, phase two is used to correct the alignment or permanent teeth which sprouted after phase one. The reason for this is because although we can influence your child’s jaws development, we cannot fix the alignment of teeth that have yet to sprout.
Although there are many advantages of early treatment, a disadvantage is that often most children would still need to undergo phase two treatment, increasing the cost factor and time frame.
It is important to note that phase two treatment without phase one can be slightly more complex.
Call us today to find out more about your orthodontic options.