Hidden risks of lip sucking in children

Lip sucking is a serious problem among children. It is a well-known fact that lip sucking can be detrimental to overall health beyond a certain age. Lip sucking is not widely diagnosed and corrected by many parents due to a result of poor awareness. 

There are some main reasons why kids suck their lips.

In this article, let us address the hidden risks of lip sucking and discuss on how to coach your kids to avoid this habit in their daily routine:

Causes

The common causes why your kid ends up sucking up their lips are:

Malocclusion or misalignment of teeth. There are two types of malocclusion that might occur, overbite and open bite.

• Overbite is a type of malocclusion in which case, only the top set of teeth come forward.

• Open bite is another type of serious malocclusion that can happen in which case, both the top and bottom teeth come forward.

When experiencing malocclusion, it becomes convenient for your kid to place their lower tissue between the upper and the lower jaws. If the lip sucking happens fairly regularly, over time, the top and the bottom teeth might come forward and change the alignment with respect to each other.

Lip sucking is also done as a way to counter stress, especially when they are in a new environment.

Risks and problems that may come due to a result of long term lip sucking

Long term lip sucking might result in issues such as:

1)Worsening of the malocclusion already present in the teeth – It results in the upper set of teeth inclining forward whilst the lower set of teeth inclines backward.

2) Poor muscle balance – Lip sucking may result in crowding of teeth which may then result in weakening of the incisors (the lower ones especially)

3) Reddening of lips and damage to the lips resulting in even bleeding in rare cases.

4) The weakening of muscles around the lips.

How to counter lip sucking especially amongst children?

If you ought to counter lip sucking amongst kids, it is vital that you teach your kids good oral hygiene and discourage lip sucking by offering incentives. Explain the significance of the issue and if necessary, you can even use materials like lip bumper.

If the issue persists, take your kid to a dentist who might prescribe alternative ways to counteract the habit.