A smile is a wondrous, beautiful thing, isn’t it? It reflects joy in a powerful way. Beautiful smiles charm, encourage, uplift, and brighten our lives. An engaging smile is a seemingly small gesture, but it renders a magic touch with a ripple effect, as it spreads from one person to another.
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The process of the teeth of the upper jaw meshing with the teeth of the bottom jaw is called occlusion. If done correctly, this involves 128 contact points. Malocclusion, also known as bad bite, is when your teeth do not fit together properly and your bite is not correct.
Genetics, you were born with it. You started out with good bite when you had your baby teeth but, when they fell out, your adult teeth did not follow the proper eruption pattern. Perhaps your teeth and jaws were not properly positioned causing your permanent teeth to grow in out of line.
Some people have jaws that are just too small to accommodate the size and number of permanent teeth. Bad habits such as thumb sucking can put undue pressure on erupting teeth and cause them to come in at strange angles.
It takes 17 muscles to smile and forty three to frown. If you see your child spending too much time frowning because of an imperfect smile, it’s time to do something about it. Why put those muscles to work for the wrong reason? A visit to an orthodontic specialist can make a world of difference, giving your child a reason to flash those pearly whites. However, you need to take the first step and find out how braces could be the answer that your child needs.
