2322 196th St. SW, Suite 201 Lynnwood, WA 98036
- (425) 361-7499
2322 196th St. SW, Suite 201 Lynnwood, WA 98036
Airway Centered Expert in Lynnwood near Bothell, Mill Creek, Brier, and Mountlake Terrace
It is important for children to have healthy sleep, and early airway problems can be detected through a screening examination by Dr. Buck. Customized treatments, starting at age 4, can improve or eliminate sleep-breathing problems and promote healthy jaw growth. Proper cognitive development relies on robust and healthy sleep, and untreated sleep disorders can lead to symptoms related to ADD. Addressing these issues early can reduce the need for braces later in life and benefit a child’s overall growth and development.
Children should not snore or breathe through their mouths at night, as it can harm growth, development, and brain function. Kids need 9-11 hours of quality sleep daily for healthy development.
Research supports early jaw development strategies to improve jaw growth patterns to positively affect sleep. Using Airway Centered Orthodontic strategies including myofunctional coaching and orthopedic jaw growth appliances we can make major positive changes for children.
We’ve grown up in a culture where the first orthodontic screening usually happens at age 7. Then they begin a waiting period until around the age of 12 when their permanent teeth have erupted. With today’s science, we know better. The waiting period for orthodontics is a missed opportunity.
By starting early in a child’s facial development, we can use myofunctional treatments, orthopedic jaw growth stimulation and adjunctive myofunctional orthodontics to maximize the full genetic potential of facial growth. Dr. Buck believes it’s possible a high percentage of children he is treating with these techniques will not need braces at all in their early teen years.
By eliminating snoring and mouth breathing by developing the child’s airway, myofunctional treatments assures for restful sleep and all the developmental benefits that affords a growing child. The full forward developed jaws also create competent airways and proper body posture which are key factors in avoiding sleep apnea as an adult. Additionally, the a fully formed jaw creates aesthetically pleasing, fully developed facial features.
Children are not just small adults. The threshold for sleep disordered breathing (SDB) in children is much lower than adults. In adults, episodes where breathing stops or is reduced must last 10 or more seconds before being considered an apnea or hypopnea. Even healthy adults have some degree of sleep-related disordered breathing. There is an apnea index to differentiate normal from pathologic apnea. The apnea index is an average of the number of apneas occurring per hour during sleep. Apnea indices of fewer than 5 events per hour and hypopnea indices of fewer than 5 events per hour are generally considered to be within normal limits by adult standards. Healthy children have fewer episodes of sleep disordered breathing than adults, and adult criteria is inadequate for diagnosing OSA in children. Most pediatric sleep centers view apneas or hypopneas that occur more than once per hour as abnormal. Other diagnostic factors are should be considered. It is not cute if your child snores – it is dangerous.
Mouth breathing is chaotic, and it disrupts the balance of CO2 and O2 in the blood. This leads to a chemical imbalance of blood pH due to breathing off CO2 from the lungs which always occurs with mouth breathing. This effect causes over-breathing in rate with shallow patterns of breathing that are unhealthy. Lowered CO2 in the blood always decreases the oxygen delivery to all tissues including the brain which is the most sensitive tissue to oxygen. A young child with highly active and developing neural tissue can be adversely affected by decreased oxygen delivery during sleep as a result of chronic mouth breathing. At the same time, mouth breathing activates the stress side of the nervous system, increasing stress hormones. This creates, among other things, excess circulating cortisol. Cortisol destabilizes blood sugar, elevating it and leading to over-secretion of insulin and a feedback cycle of elevated triglycerides and fat storage. Improper hunger comes from this effect due to episodes of low blood sugar. Finally, elevated stress activation contributes to systemic inflammation.
Starting early in a child’s facial development, we utilize orthopedic jaw growth appliances, along with myofunctional therapy to correct inadequate jaw growth and reduce the need for complex orthodontics including braces later. Dr. Buck believes many children treated this way may avoid braces entirely.
By stimulating robust jaw growth and expansion we can markedly help children to recover deep restorative sleep. Once improved nasal breathing is achieved, we maintain correct jaw growth trajectory by insuring a healthy myofunctional environment (swallowing, tongue posture, lip seal and nasal breathing)
Examples of Dr. Buck’s work with children
3-dimensional face forward jaw growth:
10 months’ time using sagittal face forward growth appliance:
