Mouth Breathing: Why it can be Detrimental to Your Child’s Health and Facial Growth

Mouth breathers are tongue thrusters and have poor tongue coordination. In tongue thrusting, the tongue pushes against the back of the teeth during swallowing. Abnormal swallowing patterns cause major problems in the cranio-facial development in children.
The nose and the mouth serve very different functions. Each nostril is innervated by five cranial nerves from a different side of the brain. Each nostril functions independently and synergistically in filtering, warming, moisturizing, dehumidifying, and smelling the air. It's like having two noses housed in one shelter. The respiratory system of carbon dioxide and oxygen exchange occurs in the alveoli of the lungs. When there is proper oxygen-carbon dioxide exchange, the blood will maintain a balanced pH. If carbon dioxide is lost too quickly, as in mouth breathing, oxygen absorption is decreased. There is a negative pressure built in the lungs, thereby decreasing the blood absorption of oxygen. Because the breathing mechanism (nerve innervations) is situated in the nose and not in the mouth, the brain thinks carbon dioxide is being lost too quickly through the nose. When the brain senses this, it will stimulate the goblet cells to produce mucous and slow the breathing.
Many dentists and orthodontists have known for years that there is a direct relationship between the degree of mouth breathing and the severity of the malocclusion in a patient. We are now beginning to realize the magnitude of health issues that are associated with incorrect breathing. Incorrect breathing has affected almost every facet of our society. Mouth breathing is a huge problem and has a major influence in the quality of our daily lives. Each of our bodies' 3,000,000,000,000 (trillion) cells need oxygen, otherwise they will die.

The Benefits of Nose Breathing
• Reduces snoring
• Corrects the tongue thrust (for orthodontic retention and prevention of poor cranio-facial development in children)
• Improves the coordination of orofacial musculatures (for speech improvement)
• Increases stamina and endurance
• Prevents over training
• Decreases mucous production
• Reduces pulse rate
• Places less stress on the heart
• Improves oxygenation of the blood