MOUTH-BREATHING CAN cause all kinds of short-term issues, many of which are connected to poor sleep quality from getting insufficient oxygen by breathing through the mouth. Short-Term Consequences of a Mouth-Breathing Habit If a child …
When to Start Discouraging Thumbsucking
IT MIGHT BE CLICHÉD to say it, but it’s true that kids grow up fast. They’re constantly outgrowing their clothes, outsmarting your most ingenious baby-proofing techniques, and learning new things. We can’t help you with …
The Decayed Teeth of Early Modern England
THERE WAS SOMETHING rotten in the state of England during the Early Modern Era: everyone’s sweet tooth! The English loved the expensive new commodity of sugar so much that the royalty and nobility were extremely …
Improving Our Mood and Health With Smiles
THE OLD LINE “it takes fewer muscles to smile than frown” isn’t actually true. It takes at least ten muscles to smile but as few as six to frown, so maybe the saying should be …
40% of Kids Have a Cavity by Age 11!
TWO OUT OF EVERY FIVE kids will end up with one or more cavities by their eleventh birthday. At those numbers, cavities are the most common childhood disease. What can parents do to fight these …
The Typical Timeline for Baby Teeth
TWO OF THE BIGGEST milestones of child development are when their baby teeth start coming in and when they start being replaced by adult teeth. First-time parents probably have a lot of questions about what’s …
Dental Health of Early Native Americans
WHEN WE PICTURE people of earlier eras, particularly pre-industrial ones, we tend to assume that they must have had really bad teeth. While it definitely is easier to get high-quality dental care these days, not …
Water Activities and Your Teeth
TO THE AVID swimmers out there, you may have noticed that your teeth are at their most sensitive after you get out of the pool. It’s not something that’s obvious after just one afternoon at …
Don’t Use Your Teeth as Tools!
OUR TEETH CAN do a lot of things. They chew our food, they form a lot of the structure of our faces to make us look the way we do, they make it possible to …
Teaching Good Dental Health Habits
IT’S NOT ALWAYS easy to teach a young child how to brush and floss. Little kids are balls of energy with no attention span, and a brushing session is likely to go awry. We have …