The benefits of breastfeeding are well known to all, although perhaps not everyone knows that among the many benefits it brings are also those related to the oral health of the child.
In this sense, breastfeeding helps your mouth to develop properly, reducing up to 50 percent the risk of dental malocclusions, preparing you for chewing and favoring your breathing. We explain, step by step, how the suction of the maternal breast influences in all these aspects.
Better oral development
To begin to understand the incredible benefits of breast sucking for the baby, Dr. Juan Carlos Pérez Varela, president of the Spanish Society of Orthodontics, explains what the oral anatomy of the newborn is like:
"When a baby is born, the size of its upper jaw is larger than the lower one. In addition, the lower jaw is more delayed than the upper jaw; that is, it is in the distal position."
The breast suction stimulates the baby's oral muscles, it favors that the jaw advances from its distal position, and favors a correct growth of the lower jaw. All this helps to avoid up to 50 percent of dental malocclusions and mandibular retrognathisms, and favors a good relationship between the maxilla and the jaw.
But these benefits not only influence one aesthetically correct denture for the child, but also in its functionality, avoiding future problems related to bite and speech.
"Babies who breastfeed are less likely to have discrepancies in the size of the jaws than those who are fed only with a bottle. Thus, breastfeeding helps prevent dentomaxillofacial abnormalities and dental malocclusions," Pérez Varela explains.
In Babies and more, how does the bottle, breastfeeding and pacifier affect the oral health of children?In addition, and as we have seen on other occasions, it is important to emphasize that it is not true that prolonged breastfeeding is associated with the appearance of caries. In this regard, Dr. Pérez Varela clarifies that if they appear, it will be due to an accumulation of factors that have nothing to do with the fact that the baby is breastfeeding.
Improves nasal breathing and chewing
And if this were not enough, babies fed with breastfeeding have a lower risk of atypical swallowing, suffering from problems related to chewing, oral breathing and difficulties in speech articulation.
"A baby that sucks, strengthens the physiological nasal breathing circuit, since, unable to breathe through the mouth (which has hermetically closed to suck) exercises the act of perfectly synchronizing the actions of sucking, swallowing and breathing through the nose "
In Babies and more What is atypical infant swallowing and why it is important to solve it in time"Another advantage of breastfeeding over oral development is that prevents the child from acquiring oral habits harmful to the oral cavity, like sucking your finger or putting things in your mouth. The longer they are breast fed, the less they will suck their finger or need to resort to pacifiers, as their needs for non-nutritive suction are satisfied with breast suction "- explains Juan Carlos Pérez Varela.
The incredible movements of the baby when breastfeeding
All this happens thanks to the incredible movements that the baby makes with the mouth when breastfeeding, and that take place in two phases:
- A first phase, in which the baby seals the mother's nipple and part of the areola with his mouth, and the act of breastfeeding begins. This is how experts describe it:
"The back of the baby's tongue and hard palate catch the nipple, while making a tight seal with the lips and slightly lowering the soft palate and jaw. At this time, the lower jaw descends somewhat and in the anterior region a vacuum is formed, the back being closed by the soft palate and the back of the tongue ".
- A second phase, in which the baby brings the jaw forward to take out the milk, since it does not come out with simple suction.
"At this time, the lower jaw advances from a resting position until its alveolar edge is placed in front of the upper one. To make the milk come out, the baby presses the lower jaw to the nipple and squeezes it by an anteroposterior rubbing, thus achieving the exit of the milk flow. The tongue takes the form of a spoon to slide the milk to the soft palate ".
These anteroposterior movements, as well as the position and shape of the tongue, will make that from the first moments of life, the baby begins to stimulate muscles, bones, cartilage and oral structures for proper development.
In Babies and more, they discover that babies breastfeed as we thought Experts emphasize that these movements are not the same in babies who take a bottle, because in that case the lips do not close with such force and the mouth takes the form of "O". This causes that the oral emptiness does not occur and the action of the tongue is hindered, which moves forward against the gum to regulate the flow of milk and remains flat, instead of spoon-shaped.
"With the bottle there is a lower exercise of the buccal musculature that will tend to become hypotonic, that is, with less muscle tone. Therefore, the harmonious growth of the bones and cartilage will not be favored, leaving the lower jaw in its distal position "
Therefore, once again the incredible benefits of breastfeeding in the baby are evident, and how it can help, through proper oral development, to make the incorporation of solids in the child's diet more satisfactory.
Photos | iStock
Acknowledgments | SEDO
