The symptoms of this kind of grinding teeth often worry parents. In fact, this unconscious grinding behavior of children during sleep is also called bruxism in medicine.
The researchers conducted an epidemiological survey on bruxism among the parents of 779 children aged 3-6 in Shanghai. The questionnaire survey shows that:
There are 299 children with bruxism, and the prevalence rate is 38.4%. Among them, 15 1 boys suffered from bruxism, and the prevalence rate was 40.6%. The number of female students is 148, and the prevalence rate is 36.4%.
From these data, we can find that bruxism has gradually become younger.
However, in the cognition of most parents, children grind their teeth because of roundworms or calcium deficiency in their stomachs. However, is it true that children have roundworms when grinding their teeth or lack calcium in their stomachs?
Why do you grind your teeth at an early age?
1. The child is very nervous.
Many parents think that mental stress is limited to adults, because adults have pressure from life and work.
But children, like us, sometimes get nervous.
For example, when children watch cartoons or listen to stories, they are in high spirits, laughing or excited, and sometimes they are frightened or reprimanded by their parents.
These excited or depressed and uneasy emotions are easy to cause grinding teeth.
2. Nutritional imbalance
When children grow up, it is time to need nutrition. Many parents often don't care much about their children's diet.
Especially in families where grandparents take care of their children, in order to let their children have a good meal, they often only cook some foods that they like to eat. Over time, children have developed the habit of partial eclipse.
According to a survey, in China, 70% of children between the ages of two and seven are picky eaters.
Long-term picky eaters can easily make children lack vitamins such as calcium and phosphorus, and the involuntary contraction of facial masticatory muscles will grind their teeth back and forth.
The child's sleeping position is not correct.
Incorrect sleeping posture is also one of the reasons for grinding teeth.
Most children like to lie on their side or lie prone. In this sleeping position, the lower jaw can easily support the head wrongly. At this time, the posterior teeth are often in an incorrect contact state.
In this state, the temporomandibular joint and related muscles will grind their teeth.
What effect does grinding teeth have on children?
1. Affect tooth development
Children grind their teeth at night, and their teeth are basically in a state of empty bite, which is easy to cause damage to enamel. In the long run, it will make teeth weak and cause some dental diseases.
In addition, because the baby often grinds his teeth at night, it will also make the child's teeth wear prematurely. Once you encounter cold, hot, sour, sweet and other irritating foods, it will cause allergies and severe tooth pain.
2. Affect children's sleep
It is very important to ensure adequate sleep when children are growing up.
Children grind their teeth and sleep at night is not practical at all, and they are basically in a state of half dream and half awake, which not only affects the quality of children's sleep, but also has a certain impact on their length and development.
3. Affect the child's facial development
When children grind their teeth, the masticatory muscles will continue to contract, and repeated grinding actions will make the masticatory muscles developed. In the long run, the lower end of the child's face will become bigger and the face will become square.
If the child grinds his teeth seriously, it will cause pain in the mandibular joint and local muscles, which will affect the child's daily diet and speech behavior.
What should parents do?
1. Let children relax properly and reduce brain excitement.
As we all know, mental stress before going to bed is one of the reasons that cause children to grind their teeth at night.
Before children go to bed, parents should try their best to let them relax and have a good sleep. You can give your child a hot bath, listen to light music and tell stories, so that the child can relax and release the fear and tension generated during the day.
In addition, parents should also pay attention not to let their children play too excited and tired during the day, so as to effectively alleviate the symptoms of children grinding their teeth at night.
2. Adjust the diet and supplement nutrition for children.
Children's growth and development can not be separated from a balanced nutritional intake. For vegetables that children don't like, parents can change cooking methods or change the shape of vegetables.
For example, some children don't like carrots, and parents can make carrots with rice and vegetables into different shapes, such as the shapes of animals such as bears and rabbits.
Some children like to eat before going to bed. Parents can adjust their food intake by eating in advance.
Letting children develop good eating habits can help children improve the symptoms of grinding their teeth at night.
Step 3 put on a dental pad to relieve grinding teeth.
Sometimes, when children change teeth, malnutrition and tooth dysplasia will make the occlusal surface of children's teeth uneven. In this case, it is easy to grind your teeth at night.
At this time, parents should take their children to the hospital first and ask the dentist to conduct a comprehensive examination of their teeth.
If it is caused by uneven occlusal surface of teeth, you need to ask a doctor to make a tooth pad for molar appliance and wear it between upper and lower teeth at night.
Grinding teeth at night will have a great impact on children's physical and mental health. Parents should pay more attention to their children's molars when they find their children grinding their teeth at night, find them in time, prescribe the right medicine, and never blindly give them pesticides.
In addition, children should be told to pay attention to oral hygiene, brush their teeth on time, protect their teeth in daily life, and reduce the occurrence of molars to some extent.