Early Orthodontic Treatment

About Early Orthodontic Treatment

Timing is extremely important in the orthodontic treatment of a child’s dental growth and development. It is recommended that a child be seen at age 7 or earlier if there are indications of a problem. This is the age at which we’d like to first see your child for a check-up.

The reason we’d like to examine your child at this young age is to make sure there are no problems which will be more complicated to manage if left until later. If so, we can intercept them early. If everything is looking normal, we love telling patients that nothing needs to be done now and we book you in for complimentary growth and development checks while we wait for the right time for treatment.

The growth spurt of the upper jaw is between the ages of 6-10 years old, whereas the lower jaw is closer to puberty at 11-14 years old. For this reason and others, the ideal timing for treatment is different for every patient and hard to get right - even for the Dentist! Thats why we suggest an early check at 7 years old, then we can let you know when the right time is.

Some problems, if not managed at the right time can increase the need for extractions of adult teeth and even jaw surgery!

Lastly, our treatment philosophy is that we want to give you or your child a beautiful, healthy smile for life. There are characteristics of a youthful smile and an older smile, and we direct treatment toward prolonging the youthfulness of your or your child’s smile for as long as possible.