Guide your child’s teeth as they grow
Dentistry is changing. Braces doesn’t need to wait until your child has all of their adult teeth. Using Healthy Start, you can align your child’s teeth, improve their arch size and shape while they grow. Not only does this therapy benefit your child’s dental health, but is also proven to improve sleep, behaviour, and overall health by increasing the amount of oxygen that your child intakes every night.
Unlike braces, the ideal time to start is 5 years old, when the first adult teeth are about to erupt.
If you wish to learn more, book a consultation with Dr. Aisling Whitaker at our St Clair location.
What is Healthy Start?
Healthy Start is a system of appliances that works while your child is growing. The goal of treatment is to guide the teeth, dental arches and jaws as they grow. This therapy also aims to train optimum tongue posture, breathing pattern and improve poor sleep habits. This happens by using a series of mouthguards, mainly worn at night.
The initial appliance is the habit corrector, worn for approximately 3-9 months, which trains the tongue position and swallowing as well as addressing mouth breathing. Once habit correction is complete, your child will then move through the orthodontic guidance mouth guards as their adult teeth are growing in. The result is arch expansion, aligned teeth, improved breathing and lower or no need for braces.
Treatment time is approximately 12 months depending on the dental age of the child. They will then stay in a retainer until approximately puberty. The long term goal is to avoid unnecessary intervention later on such as surgical orthodontics, sleep apnea appliances and medications for behavioural issues.
