Did you know that our team can help address poor alignment for kids starting as young as age seven? Starting care early can help guide the growth and development of the smile! In today’s blog, your Shirley, NY, pediatric dentist and orthodontist talks about how we improve little smiles with phased orthodontics.
Starting Care
At around age seven, children have started to lose baby teeth and have permanent teeth erupt. Which means our team can more accurately assess the risk of misalignment and malocclusion. Using advanced imaging technology, we can make a diagnosis with precision and plan treatment with accuracy. Starting early means we can use custom orthodontics to guide the growth and development of the smile, limiting the severity of misalignment until children’s permanent teeth erupt and calcify, at which point the process can be completed with braces or aligners.
Our Phase One Orthodontics
One example of a phase one system is the retainer. A retainer is a custom-made and fitted oral appliance that children wear to help limit misalignment and ensure proper jawbone growth and development. They can be removable or fixed in place, and could be attached to one or both sides of the mouth. We also have space maintainers too. When children lose baby teeth early, this could mean the surrounding teeth can drift and impact how the permanent ones erupt, causing misalignment. But with a space maintainer, we have an orthodontic device that can keep these areas open and allow the permanent teeth to erupt without complication, ensuring proper alignment. Again, this option can be fixed in place or removable, and can be attached to one or both sides of the mouth.
What About Phase Two?
As we touched on above, phase two is essentially braces or Invisalign® aligners, and is the stage that completes the process and concludes your child’s orthodontic treatment. This usually occurs in the teen years, as we need all permanent teeth to erupt and their surfaces calcify before we can begin treatment. Our team can work with our kids throughout their childhood to ensure they have even, healthy, and beautiful smiles. But in addition, we can also work with adults using our second phase of treatment, addressing the entire family’s poor alignment and ensuring everyone can smile with confidence!
If you have any questions about how we treat misalignment in childhood with our phase one treatments, then contact our team today to learn more.
Schedule Your Child’s Consultation In Shirley, NY
Correcting misalignment early helps protect kids from poor oral health by correcting their misalignment. For more information on children’s treatments or to schedule an appointment, call us at Shirley Orthodontics and Pediatric Dentistry in Shirley, NY at (631) 399-1600.
Recent Comments