The First Step in Preventive Orthodontics

I've written before about how I was attracted to ecological breastfeeding because it simplifies life and doesn't require buying extra things, not to mention cleaning and storing those things.  Another big thing related to the unnecessary use of bottles and pacifiers that appealed to me in Breastfeeding and Natural Child Spacing was the research about orthodontics.  A family member recently shared with me that her son's braces cost them $5,000.  And since we plan on having more than one kid, expenses like that can add up pretty quickly.  If my children still need braces, that's fine, but I want to do everything I can to try to avoid incurring those kind of bills. 

In Breastfeeding and Natural Child Spacing, Sheila Kippley writes:

"In studying the histories of 9,698 children, researches at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health found 'that children bottlefed or breastfed for less than a year reported misaligned teeth 40% more often than children breastfed for more than one year... But those breastfed for three months or less and those who continued to suck a finger had the highest risk of crooked teeth.' They concluded that breastfeeding contributes to straighter teeth because 'it leads to different growth patterns in the mouth than those in bottlefed babies.'" (23)

In a family I know with three grown children, the first two were breastfed, one of them for two years, and I doubt they used many bottles, if at all.  The third was bottlefed and was the only one of the three who needed braces.  I know of another family with similar results.  Kippley and her husband were bottlefed babies and required braces, while none of their five children needed braces.  It's possible that these particular results are mere coincidence and the children who didn't need braces still would not have needed them had they been given pacifiers and bottles.  But given the statistics, there is definitely a correlation in the overall population that is worth considering. 

Gus and I were both bottlefed; Gus didn't have to have braces, and my teeth weren't that bad but I had them for 18 months.  Hopefully our good teeth genes will be carried on to our children, and their chances of avoiding braces will be improved by breastfeeding without the use of bottles or pacifiers.  Early on, I also made sure that Nathan's non-nutritional sucking needs were met by breastfeeding so that he would not develop a thumb sucking habit that could effect his teeth.  (He does occasionally suck on his bottom lip, which, based on a couple ultrasound pictures, I'm pretty sure he did before he was born).  I am very interested to see how this turns out in a few years.