Mini ReviewAbstract
Arduous teaching work must be carried out with the undergraduate student of the Stomatology career from their formative stage and within them are preventive actions to correct inappropriate practices that help prevent dentomaxillofacial anomalies modify habits and improve the quality of life of our infants being considered one of the main tasks in contemporary Dentistry. The success of this instruction does not only lie in the knowledge of the health guidelines that the student can sustain through theoretical knowledge, but that they learn through practice to transmit healthy habits that are nothing more than behaviors that will allow them to children how to care for and maintain their oral health and that to a certain extent guarantees a healthy life, without having to resort to other treatments of prolonged therapeutic regimens for orthodontic purposes.
Keywords:Prevention; Undergraduate; Finger Sucking
Introduction
Malocclusions are oral alterations that have a high prevalence worldwide, in which habits occupy one of the risk factors that intervene in their occurrence [1], hence the need to prevent them from early in life, prepare the student of the career, is to appropriate the tools necessary to achieve a better professional performance and reduce the prevalence and the effects they generate. These malocclusions can appear from childhood and are preventable in many cases with correct habits of hygiene, food, behaviors and attitudes that are not born with people but must be cultivated from the first moments of life [2]; What is propitious, comment on how habits and specifically that of finger suction is capable of causing great alterations when it is not treated in time causing severe alterations to the oral complex. It must be of wide domain for the undergraduate student that in the case of the habit of finger sucking can bring alarming consequences to the stomatognathic complex, being affected orofacial structures and the occlusion of the individual, for which arduous, preventive and tenacious work is imposed both students and specialists reaching directly to patients and families.
Developing
Regarding the habit of sucking in dentistry, there are two forms
of suction, one linked to nutritive sucking and the other considered
non-nutritive [3]. The digital suction initially constitutes an aid
to complement the demands through a nutritious suction, where
breastfeeding and feeding with a bottle, jugs, etc., are essential
sources of food and through which the baby obtains the necessary
nutrients for its sustenance. In relation to a non-nutritive sucking,
which differs from the nutritive one, the child is able to use objects
such as fingers, pacifiers, cloths or toys that can serve mainly to
satisfy psychological needs and these contribute greatly to the
development of malocclusions [3]. which means it is important
to know it in order to find solutions with a view to preventing
them. From a psychological point of view, this practice should be
specified because sometimes many of the causes of this ingrained
habit are related to psychic aspects [4], therefore early discarding
the causes that produce it helps to a great extent to dissipate
occlusion alterations which later they affect the facial aesthetics
that negatively affects the patient. Non-nutritive sucking habits
in all cases can be modifiable3, but preventive work by students
and specialists is necessary, as well as early communication with
children carrying this habit, parents and relatives who greatly help
to improve this habit.
An excessive sucking habit can trigger occlusal effects that, from
an orthodontic point of view, have repercussions in physical side
effects of excessive digital suction and translate into anterior open bite, increased overshoot, lingual inclination of lower incisors and
labial inclination of upper incisors, bite posterior cross, protractile
tongue, deep palatal vault, speech defects, finger defects, creating
an eczema of the finger due to the dryness and humidity that
occurs alternately, and even angulations of the fingers due to habit,
retrusion mandibular with persistence of a convex profile as well
as Diastema in the midline compared to the midline of the face, and
other aspects of a facial nature that generate not only oral problems
[5,6], in addition to the psychosocial repercussion that this creates.
These defects that may appear during the persistence of the
habit can be avoided with an arduous, indissoluble and incessant
preventive treatment that contributes to a high quality of life from
an early age, playing a fundamental role, the teacher’s leadership
and the student’s actions, without underestimate the role of the
family as a fundamental link in this process, which would largely
dispense with the placement of orthodontic appliances, which on
many occasions generate discomfort, abandonment of treatments
and large costs.
The knowledge about the prevention that students must
have to prevent habits, such as finger sucking and prevent the
installation of Dentomaxillofacial Anomalies, greatly favors treating
a health problem and improving the route to avoid the development
of problems induced by said habit. The teacher has the duty to
train and teach students, as well as to guide parents on how the
individual grows and develops, how diseases can be prevented at
their age and the adoption of a healthier lifestyle, taking advantage
of who are in a stage of physical, mental and social formation, with
a great capacity for learning and assimilation of positive patterns
for life.
Conclusion
This work allows establishing a direct link from theoretical knowledge and stomatological practice with the undergraduate student’s training, favoring the same to increase their scientific knowledge and at the same time providing information about one of the problems that affect pediatric patients and its consequences on the oral complex. Instructing the undergraduate student in significant aspects of what they would face in their community, or population as part of the professional performance model, would be a wise idea to try, always seeking to develop disciplinary proposals in the stomatological field, which allows the development of new knowledge and strategies that help improve oral health related specifically to the habit of finger sucking.
References
- Korner AF, Reider N (1955) Psychologic Aspects of Disruption of Thumbsucking by Means of Dental Appliance. Angle Orthodontist 25(1): 23-31.
- Rochat P (2015) The Development of coordination in Infancy. Elsevier Science Publishers B.V.
- Warren (2005) Nonnutritive sucking and the mixed dentition. Pediatric Dentistry [Internet].
- Horne RS, Witcombe NB, Yiallourou SR, Richardson HL (2010) Sudden infant deathsyndrome: implications of altered physiological control during sleep. Curr Pediatr Rev [Internet] 6 (1): 30-38.
- Indushekar GB, Gupta B, Indushekar KR (2012) Childhood thumb sucking habit: theburden of a preventable problem ! Journal of Dentistry, Medicine and MedicalSciences. [Internet] 2 (1): 1-4.
- (1999) American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry. Thumbsucking - stop it early.Madison: Pediatric Dentistry [Internet] 1999.
