Abstract
Thumb sucking is a common habit developed by children and begins as early as in utero. However, it becomes problematic when a child continues to suck their thumb past the age of 4 years, when their secondary dentition is developing and preparing to erupt. Prolonged thumb sucking into adolescence can have deleterious effects on dental and skeletal structures based on the duration and how frequent the child engages in this nonnutritive sucking habit. Thumb sucking can lead to various types of effects such as increased overjet, anterior open bite, posterior cross bite, maxillary arch constriction, high palatal vault, and Class II malocclusion. This paper presents a case study, which focuses on chronic thumb sucking in a family, the dental and skeletal changes that the family members experienced, and whether or not this prolonged behavior can be genetically influenced. Based on this case study and the field of behavioral genetics it is possible that there can be a genetic component to the duration of thumb sucking into adolescence.
Highlights
Nonnutritive sucking is a very common habit that occurs in children and can persist through adolescence and sometimes even adulthood
Tudinal study conducted by War-‐ ren et al [3], dental examinations were conducted on 630 children, and 524 sufficient study models were obtained in order to evaluate the effects of chronic nonnutritive sucking habits on the mixed denti-‐ tion
The results of this study have shown a greater preva-‐ lence of thumb sucking in monozygotic twins than dizygotic twins, suggesting that there is most likely a genetic component to thumb sucking
Summary
Nonnutritive sucking is a very common habit that occurs in children and can persist through adolescence and sometimes even adulthood. Chronic nonnutritive suck-‐ ing, thumb sucking can have some deleterious effects on the primary, mixed, and perma-‐ nent dentitions. Studies have shown that in the primary denti-‐ tion, nonnutritive sucking habits were associated with anterior open bite, increased overjet, and Class II canine and molar relation-‐ ships [2]. Ever, the few studies that were conducted show that there is an increase in malocclusion in those who continue to suck their thumb into their mixed dentition stage. Common forms of malocclusion that are often seen in the mixed dentition stage include anterior open bite, posterior cross bite, bi-‐. Tudinal study conducted by War-‐ ren et al [3], dental examinations were conducted on 630 children, and 524 sufficient study models were obtained in order to evaluate the effects of chronic nonnutritive sucking habits on the mixed denti-‐ tion. The same dental and skeletal manifes-‐ tations can persist into the permanent dentition phase
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