Recently, a tape-like "oral breath correction sticker" and "closed mouth sticker" have been planted on various social platforms to prevent the baby from sleeping with his mouth open and his mouth from becoming ugly.
Image source: Network
When we brush the content of mouth breathing on the Internet, we are often deeply poked by words such as bulging mouth, tooth decay, and ugly, so we quickly turn around to look at the sleeping baby and observe whether he has opened his mouth?
Image source: Network
Such "oral breath correction patches" have monthly sales of up to 10w+ on e-commerce platforms.
Image source: Network
Does the "oral breathing correction patch" really work? Does the "ugliness" that moms and dads fear really exist? Today we invite an otolaryngologist to talk to us in detail.
"Oral Breathing Correction Patch"
Does it really work?
The otolaryngologist tells you: It's useless.
One of the reasons why the baby opens his mouth is because of some diseases, such as adenoids, tonsil hypertrophy and allergic rhinitis, turbinate hypertrophy, etc., resulting in narrow upper airway, nasal breathing obstruction, and have to open the mouth, breathe with the mouth.
This airway obstruction can cause not only oral breathing, but also snoring during sleep.
Image source: Stand Cool Helo
The other is that bad oral habits cause children to open their mouths, such as bad habits such as improper feeding habits of infants and young children, finger sucking, tongue spitting, etc., which cause the baby to habitually open his mouth, but this is usually related to facial deformities.
"Oral breathing correction patch" can not fundamentally solve the problem of children's nasal breathing obstruction, nor can it solve the facial deformity, but only roughly stick the child's mouth up.
After taking it off, the child will soon return to a comfortable open mouth state, which is fundamentally useless, just like the child has a fever sticker, we just cool the baby's forehead, but bacteria, viruses, etc. still exist in the body, and the problem is not solved.
Sticking a "mouth breath correction patch" will not solve the problem, and what is more frightening is that it will cause other more serious consequences after attaching it.
Causes hypoxia in your baby's sleep:
The baby's mouth to breathe is actually the body's self-help when the nose is not breathing well. Sticking the mouth with a "mouth breath correction patch" is equivalent to sealing the baby's way of breathing fresh oxygen. Without fresh oxygen, your baby will experience hypoxia during sleep, apnea, severe and even suffocation.
Affects the quality of your baby's sleep:
The "oral breath correction patch" advertisement states that the breathing patch is soft and breathable, but the young baby itself does not like to be bound, and even the soft mouth breathing patch cannot be done as if it were nothing.
After attaching it, the baby keeps fighting with this mouth breathing sticker at night, can he sleep soundly? Imagine how it feels to be stuck in our mouths when we sleep on our own?
Image source: Lilac Mother Planet
We also deliberately bought a variety of "oral breath correction patches", the material is soft, but the sleeping baby, do not let you touch his face at all; it took a lot of effort to paste it, and I was scratching my mouth all night, and I slept soundly after grabbing it.
Therefore, the "oral breath correction patch" is simply tossing the child.
Baby open mouth to breathe,
Is it really going to get ugly?
This is not necessarily true, in fact, we have long misunderstood the opening of the mouth and the breathing of the mouth.
Open your mouth ≠ breath
The baby's facial muscles are insufficient, the mouth is slightly open, but there is no air flow through the mouth, this situation open mouth to sleep, not mouth breathing, do not need to worry.
There is also a situation that is pathological causes of nasal breathing difficulties, having to use the mouth to compensate for breathing, sleeping with open mouth, and even snoring, this situation needs our attention.
How can I tell if my baby is breathing?
The commonly used clinical method is the double-sided mirror method, which places the double-sided mirror below the baby's nostrils and between the upper lip to observe which mirror surface has mist beads formed, so as to judge whether it is nasal breathing or oral breathing.
However, this method can only determine the presence or absence of oral breathing, and cannot diagnose the severity of oral breathing. Quantitative measurement of oral breathing requires detection with a mouth-nose airflow synchronization tester.
Image source: (Zeng Xianglong, Gao Xuemei, Diagnosis and Treatment of Oral Breathing in Children, Chinese Journal of Stomatology, 2020.55(1): 3-8)
Mouth breathing doesn't necessarily make your baby ugly either
To study the relationship between oral breathing and facial morphology, in 2007 three researchers conducted a study of the relationship between oral breathing, nasal breathing and facial morphology in 119 adolescents aged 15 to 18 years, and found that there was no way to prove an association between oral breathing and facial morphology.
Image source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17923920/
Orthodontologist's view: oral breathing may make the problem of tooth errors and deformities more easily developed, but it is not necessarily oral breathing that will cause a specific facial misalignment deformity, and it is not a specific misalignment that must be caused by oral breathing.
Our fear of breathing orally comes mainly from the following graphs:
Image credit: Mouth breathing and facial growth: the evidence of twins] (H Deplagne, G Gaumont, 1986) French magazine
The photographs, from orthodontologist John Mew in the UK who is a professor at the Orthodontic Institute in London, are from his orthodontic techniques and research on facial changes.
Image source: Network
But his research was not recognized by the academic community and was condemned for false propaganda.
However, these photos were used by people with hearts, spreading anxiety everywhere, causing parents to breathe in the mouth and panic about the "adenoidal face".
Image source: Network
Long-term oral breathing does have the potential to affect a child's face, but how long and how it will affect is currently unknown.
Human craniofacial growth and development is influenced by two major factors: genetic factors and environmental factors.
Environmental factors include congenital factors (maternal, fetal, developmental disorders and defects) and acquired factors (systemic disorders, local disorders in the lactophyllary period, functional factors, and poor oral habits).
Therefore, we can't predict that just by opening your mouth and breathing, you can predict that your baby may be ugly and have an adenoidal face.
For the baby to open his mouth to breathe, becoming ugly is not the most terrible, the reason behind the performance can really need to solve the hidden danger.
How should the baby open his mouth to breathe?
For the baby to open his mouth slightly and cannot close it, we can observe at home, as the baby's lip muscles develop perfectly, he will close it on his own.
But there will be a small number of babies who do have a long-term mouth opening and have oral breathing, at this time we need to gradually check and find the cause to treat.
First of all, we need to go to the OTH department to check the nasal ventilation.
If your baby has trouble breathing due to rhinitis, etc., you can first treat it by cleaning the nasal cavity.
If the baby's tonsils and adenoidal hypertrophy cause breathing difficulties, the doctor will choose conservative treatment or adenoid removal surgery according to the baby's condition.
Many mothers may be concerned about the impact of adenoid and tonsil removal surgery on their baby's future. We can rest assured that tonsil and adenoidectomy will not impair your baby's immune function. The study found that after a period of time, the immunity of babies who had undergone removal surgery gradually returned to preoperative, and there was no significant difference with normal children.
If the OTOL department is fine, we need to go to the dental department to check the facial development.
Image source: Stand Cool Helo
When the ENT examination finds that oral breathing is not caused by nasal breathing obstruction, it is necessary to go to the dentistry to check whether the child is prone to open his mouth because of facial malformations, uneven dentition, tooth decay, etc.
At this time, it is necessary to pass orthodontic treatment to solve the problem of opening the mouth and even "becoming ugly". At the same time, it is also necessary to break bad habits, carry out lip muscle function training for a certain period of time every day, and close the lips well by actively exercising the relaxing lip muscles, rather than passively clinging to the mouth.
After becoming a parent, every detail of the child's growth will be more concerned, afraid that our indifference will affect the child's future. Our caution has been exploited by merchants to prevent carelessness.
The only thing that can be dealt with is that we must remain vigilant about these seemingly "non-toxic and harmless" IQ tax products, and when we find a problem with our children, we should evaluate the treatment in time and follow the doctor's advice so as not to be deviated from the nonsense on the Internet.
Zeng Xianglong,Gao Xuemei. Diagnosis and treatment of oral breathing in children. Chinese Journal of Stomatology,2020,55(1):3-8. DOI:10.3760/cma.j.issn.1002-0098.2020.01.002
[3] Brunelli V, Lione R, Franchi L, et al. Maxillary dentoskeletal changes 1 year after adenotosillectomy[J]. Int J Pediatr Otorhino laryngol, 2016, 86: 135 141
[4]https://johnmeworthotropics.co.uk/the-cause-and-cure-of-malocclusion/orthotropics_download/The%20Cause%20Of%20Malocclusion%20-%20Reading%20The%20Face.pdf
[5]https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17923920/
[6]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Mew
[7]https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25628484/
[8] Fu Minkui, Orthodontics, 6th ed
Cooperative expert Pan Chunchen
Attending physician of the First Affiliated Hospital of the University of Science and Technology of China, Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery
Audit Expert Kong Lingkai
Chinese Master of Pediatrics from the Second Military Medical University of the People's Liberation Army
Audit expert He Jianliang
The Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University Hospital
Attending physician of integrative dentistry
Audit expert Wang Qingzhu
Zhuo Zheng medical dental and orthodontic specialist
Ph.D. in Orthodontics, School of Stomatology, Peking University
Member of the College of Orthodontics, Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh, UK
Starter: Lilac Mom
Planner: Lan Lan
Producer: Astro Boy
Title image source: Stand Cool Helo