Raise Kids with Naturally Straight teeth

In Weston A. Price’s findings, naturally straight teeth and strong jaws were a hallmark of people’s teeth. They ate healthy food and got the vitamins and minerals they needed to build strong cavity-free teeth and bones. If you want to learn more about how to feed your child to promote proper bone development check out the beautiful babies e-course. and the Beautiful Babies book. It appeared that they had naturally straight teeth. I believe that naturally straight teeth should be the norm. Today we eat a SAD diet and have come to believe that crooked teeth are the normal way of life, but it doesn’t have to be. Crooked teeth is a result of how we eat and live.

Vitamins and nutrients aren’t the only things that shape our teeth. Because of the way they ate and the lifestyle they lived they had better-developed jaw and tongue muscles that were used properly. This enabled their jaw bone to develop properly creating plenty of room in their mouth for all of their teeth to align straightly.

They used their jaws more. It takes more work to chew through food that is unprocessed and you need to chew more food that is less calorie dense to get the calories you need.
They breastfed their babies longer. Breastfeeding develops the muscles in a babies mouth differently than a bottle. When breastfeeding, a child’s tongue does a wave that starts the swallow. This develops the muscles in a way that shapes the jaw structure as it is developing.
Instead of introducing mushed food, weaning children were most likely given more solid foods. This also maintains the proper swallowing and breathing mechanism and develops the muscles that shape growing jaws.

In today’s day and age Myofunctional therapy works to correct many of the issues caused by underdeveloped jaws, improper swallowing, and improper breathing.

Issues Caused by Improper jaw development

There are many problems cause by improper jaw development. It’s not just crooked teeth. The structure of the jaw, as well as the cranium, are all shaped by the habits we create in our children especially:

Improper lymph drainage which can result in low oxygen to the brain
pain resulting from poor nerve placement
Misshapen head structure can also cause the eyeballs to be more oval resulting in poor vision
Poorly formed nasal passages can lead to mouth breathing which affects the oxygenation transmission at the lungs.
Crooked teeth
Narrow jaw
Narrow cheekbones
sleep apnea
snoring
Speech problems
Allergies
Neck pain
Frequent Headaches
TMJ
Nail or lip biting
Long face
Food texture sensitivities

What is Myofunctional Therapy?

Myofunctional therapy is an exercise-based treatment related to tongue placement, breathing, chewing, and swallowing. So basically, a Myofunctional therapist retrains your swallowing, breathing, and tongue positioning to help with all sorts of ailments. They will retrain the face so that while resting:

The lips stay together
You breathe through your nose
The tongue rests on the upper palate of the mouth instead of the bottom
Swallowing is done with the tongue going up and back instead of down and forward
They also work to correct our head posture which affects the way we position our tongue

If you have noticed any of the problems improper jaw development can cause you may want to read this article and find a Myofunctional Therapist near you.

Raising Kids with Naturally Straight teeth

There is also a lot we can do in a preventative measure for our kids. Children are at such an advantage if we can train them up properly early because their bones are still soft and forming and are easier to mold in a healthy way. Here are some things you can do now to increase your children’s chances of having naturally straight teeth.

Practice extended breastfeeding: Extended breastfeeding naturally trains your child to swallow properly. When breastfeeding they actually bring the tongue up and back.
Practice Baby-led weaning and avoid mushed baby food: Mushed baby food teaches a child to suck their food in. This creates an imbalance in their swallowing and large cheek muscles. When we practice baby-led weaning and introduce pieces of food they transition their “breastfeeding swallow” to more proper swallowing of food.
Promote proper body alignment: Our posture starts at our feet and goes up. Wearing flat shoes with a wide base around the toes. Then line everything straight up starting with the ankles, pelvis, shoulders, then ears. This is easy to do when we start from the bottom and go up. This will then align the tongue and head as well. To help align your body properly check out any or all of the books by Katy Bowman. She also has a great podcast for more tips.
Keep their nasal passage clear so they don’t get in the habit of mouth breathing. You may need a warm mist humidifier or a nettie pot to help clear nasal passages.
If you notice things like food texture sensitivities, mouth breathing, a forward head thrust, ect; you may want to find a Myofunctional therapist earlier than later to help correct problems early as it is much more effective.