Breathing to humans is like sunlight to a tree. It is necessary for life. A tree normally grows straight toward the midday sun. It is easy to recognize a tree that has received sunlight only from the West. The trunk and the branches bend to the West. Soon the bend is permanent. Even if the obstruction of sunlight is removed, the tree is permanently deformed.
Humans breathe to survive. When the normal nasal mode of breathing is diminished, the survival system automatically programs us to breathe through our mouths. Much like the tree, there is a total adaptation of the system to enhance the intake of air.
The tongue, which is normally placed in the roof of the mouth drops to the floor of the mouth to allow air to pass into the back of the throat. When the mouth opens, all the muscles that control head, neck, jaw and tongue posture must adapt. As a result the affected parts grow abnormally.
The earlier in life this adaptation occurs, the greater the alteration in the facial growth of the child.
The medical and dental professions have long championed disease prevention. Children are inoculated against any number of diseases. Fluoride and plaque controlling techniques have done much to control dental disease. We are protected from disease by water purification and pasteurization.
Most of these preventive measures were not readily accepted. It took years for fluoride to be recognized as a safe and effective method for controlling dental decay, just as it took years for immunization to become routine.
Likewise, the recognition of the ill effects of chronic mouth breathing in the medical and dental professions has lagged behind the acquisition of knowledge on the subject provided though research.
When a child is unable to maintain a consistently healthy nasal airway, a number of unhealthy things happen. These include middle ear infections, sinusitis, upper airway infections, mouth breathing, head, neck and face pain, and sleep disturbances. The inability to maintain a consistently healthy airway may lead to heart and lung problems. This is being even more acknowledged with the awareness now of sleep apnea.
Snoring is a clear indication of mouth breathing problems and is often associated with a decrease in oxygen into the lungs. Researches have shown that people who snore are likely to suffer from high blood pressure, strokes, and heart disease.
There has been a rather dramatic change in the last 20+ years in the treatment of middle ear and adenotonsillar infections with ventilation tubes and antibiotics. The net result of this treatment has been a dramatic increase in nasal obstruction due to the prevalence of enlarged tonsils and adenoids in young children.
The enlargement of these structures coupled with allergic enlargement of the turbinates in the nasal passages or deviation of the nasal septum results in blockage of the air passages. We have also seen an increase in allergies in all age groups.
Severe undiagnosed nasal obstruction problems clearly can be implicated in infant crib deaths of unknown origin. Nearly all ENT physicians can cite a case of a midnight adenoidectomy necessary to save a child suffering from severe airway obstruction. In spite of the voluminous research indicating nasal obstruction to be a major health problem for growing children and adults, the effects of nasal obstruction are sill not universally recognized.
The problem of nasal obstruction may cause severe facial deformity in children. Research in growth centers in Europe, Canada and the United States has established that nasal obstruction contributes directly to facial deformity in children. Nasal breathing is the most physiological form of breathing. Infants are obligated nasal breathers because they can not suckle and breathe through their mouths at the same time.
The body is often divided into physical, dental and psychological divisions. As a result, we often overlook the fact that all parts are interrelated and that what happens in one system directly affects the other systems.
Pediatricians and many ENT physicians often do not understand or appreciated that long term mouth breathing problems during the critical early facial growth often results in permanent facial deformity and abnormal bites (malocclusions) some of which may require jaw surgery to resolve. Hopefully, in time, recognition by the medical community will come. In the meantime, what happens to children with undiagnosed and untreated airway problems? Many times some arbitrary medical insurance guidelines, such as, a child has to have "x" number of tonsil infections before "they" will suggest intervention. This is nonsense.
One can see clearly that if a young, rapidly growing child has chronic, untreated nasal obstruction and must breathe through the mouth all day and night, then the normal muscular activity of the face and jaw muscles will be altered.
We breathe an average of 20 times per minute or 30,000 times a day and we swallow ~ 2000 times a day. These events are life sustaining, and the body accommodates to allow these to occur at the expense of the system that must adapt.
In mouth breathers the adaptation must occur in the muscles of the face, jaw, tongue, lips, neck, back, shoulders, ribs and diaphragm. The abnormal pull of these muscles on the growing bones slowly deforms these bones causing mismatched jaws and malocclusions.
Breathing through the mouth affects the entire system and most particularly the face. If you detect that your child consistently breathes through the mouth during the day or night (snores or breathes heavily at night), think about the adaption the body must go through to allow this ABNORMAL breathing pattern to take place. Then picture in your mind what is happening to the development of the face as a result.
All parents can appreciate that the greatest increments of growth occur early in the life of the child. From birth to six months, weight doubles, and in the first three years of life, height doubles. These increments never are duplicated again in such time spans.
At birth, 30% of facial growth is completed; by age one, 50%; by age four, 60%; by age eight 80%; by age twelve, 90%; and by age eighteen, 100%. If a child has chronic nasal obstruction during these early critical growing years, facial deformities will result, some subtle, some gross.
Parents understandably do not want to put their children through unnecessary or unwanted treatment and often seek an opinion of what they want to hear. Every orthodontist has seen untreated airway problems that required corrective jaw surgery in addition to the necessary procedures required to produce an open airway. Early recognition and treatment are the keys.
Some parents will deny that their child is a mouth breather, thinking they are protecting the child from untoward criticism or treatment. In addition, once the problem has been identified, they may seek the opinion of other professionals who may not understand or appreciate the signficance of the problem. A state of confusion can set in. This dilemma can only be resolved by a careful evaluation of the facts.
Care of the developing face begins at birth. Parents should be just as concerned about how their children breathe as they are about how well they walk, talk and learn.
* This was taken from an article by Dr. Ernest A. Rider, Charlotte, N.C.