STRIDOR in newborns and children of the first year of life

There are many reasons for malocclusion, one of them is tongue dysfunction, or its constant incorrect position. Let us tell you in more detail why habits of sticking out the tip of the tongue, bending it, and the like are likely to lead to orthodontic problems.

Is your child sticking out his tongue? This is not a harmless habit, but a problem!

Tongue, nose, throat: everything is interconnected

The inside of a child’s nasopharynx is covered with mucous membrane, which should normally perform a protective function: trap viruses, bacteria, dust particles and other allergens. But if the mucous membrane dries out, it becomes too thin and vulnerable.

Therefore, by the way, the child’s room should be cool and fairly humid.

If the house is hot, the air is dry, the mucous membrane of the nasopharynx dries out, and any virus can easily penetrate through the thinned protective barrier. This causes frequent acute respiratory viral infections associated with a runny nose and swelling of the nose.

Due to these diseases, the child’s nasal breathing is impaired, his mouth is constantly open and his tongue is visible. Gradually, the habit of breathing through your mouth in your sleep arises.

Breathing through your mouth during sleep is a very alarming sign

The mouth opens slightly, expanding space for the tongue. And, of course, the child's tongue begins to take up this additional space in and outside the mouth.

This is how tongue dysfunction arises, then it becomes fixed in the child’s habits.

A vicious circle arises: frequent ARVI - stuffy nose - habit of breathing through the mouth - dry mucous membrane - frequent ARVI, and in addition, tongue dysfunction occurs.

All this can lead to the proliferation of lymphoid tissue, and therefore to adenoiditis and tonsillitis, since it is the nose that filters the air, and when breathing through the mouth, allergens and viruses enter directly into the oropharynx. In this case, the blood is not fully saturated with oxygen and sleep at night is disturbed - in the morning the child gets up sleep-deprived, feels drowsy during the day and cannot concentrate on studies.

Please note: when a child sleeps with his mouth open, this is a very alarming symptom. This habit easily passes into adulthood: snoring, apnea and numerous negative consequences from this occur.

Sticking out tongue after feeding

There are several reasons why a baby might stick out his tongue after feeding.

Satiety signal

After eating, the child may turn his head away from food or refuse to eat. Some children try to push food out of their mouth by sticking out their tongue.

Hunger alarm

There are times when a child is still hungry even if he has just eaten. This can happen during breastfeeding if the mother's milk supply is low, or if the baby has not received enough food.

Babies of different ages may show a range of signs that they are hungry.

Children under 6 months:

• open their mouth
• smack lips
• clench their fists
• crying

Children over 6 months:

• reaching for food
• get excited by the sight of food
• crying
• use hand movements to indicate hunger

Food Dislike Alarm

Some children stick out their tongues when they don't like a new food. This is normal for children who refuse new foods.

Parents should never force their child to eat. Instead, you need to continue to introduce a wide range of healthy foods. Many children have to be given food several times before they like it.

Tongue dysfunction: how it affects teeth

The habit of breathing through the mouth, including during sleep, leads to increased tongue dysfunction. The child begins to stick out his tongue more often (and the tongue is the strongest oral muscle), make additional efforts and press his tongue on the teeth.

What will happen to the teeth if such a habit develops?

• A diastema may form - a gap between the front teeth.
• The contacts of the teeth in the frontal region may be disrupted, then an open bite will appear - a pathology that is quite difficult to correct: it causes noticeable harm to the condition of the teeth, since the entire load falls on the chewing teeth in the lateral regions.

Open bite in a child

• The front teeth can rotate (turn around their axis) or form a protrusion - a forward tilt.

Children's teeth are quite pliable, as the child grows, the size of his jaws and the space in the row of teeth constantly increase. Therefore, the effort exerted by the tongue is quite enough to move the teeth, but they will no longer be able to return back to the correct position on their own.

One more problem

In addition to orthodontic disorders, difficulties with pronouncing sounds will increase. Speech therapy correction is designed for the correct structure of the teeth and the functioning of the tongue, so classes with a speech therapist will be very long and ineffective if the main cause of poor diction is not eliminated.

No reason to worry

A child, like an adult, can fool around and stick out his tongue. Therefore, do not rush to run to the doctor.

1. Pampering. During the game, the baby expresses his good mood in this way.
2. Teething. At this time, the gums become swollen and painful. The child tries to relieve the pain and scratch the gums with his tongue. At this time, you can notice how he sucks or chews his tongue, refusing teethers.
3. The child trains the muscles of the tongue. This is inherent in nature. This is how he prepares for speech activity.
4. Hunger. The desire to eat can be expressed in this way. Instead of eating, he chews his tongue. When the child learns to ask for food differently, the problem will go away.
5. Physiology. The tight lower jaw and large tongue do not allow the latter to fit comfortably in the oral cavity. The problem goes away when the baby is 6 months old.
6. Dry, hot air. In these cases, the oral mucosa dries out, and the baby tries to moisten it.
7. Short hyoid frenulum. This problem becomes noticeable already in the maternity hospital.

Parents are often concerned with the question: why does the baby chew or suck his tongue? The main reasons that should not cause concern in adults include:

• preparation for the act of chewing adult food;
• early weaning from the pacifier;
• when a child is very busy and concentrates on performing some action, he chews his tongue;
• You may notice how your baby chews his tongue when he is bored.

Adults should learn to recognize dangerous and harmless moments that cause a baby's tongue to stick out. It is very important to distinguish behavioral characteristics from a painful condition in time.

How to help a child?

It is worth understanding that these habits do not arise on their own and not because of bad behavior. Comments and reminders that you should not stick your tongue out will not work - you need to work with the root cause of the disorder.

1. Restore nasal breathing.

Orthodontists often prescribe consultations with an otolaryngologist, since the dental system and respiratory organs are closely connected. Removal of adenoids, treatment of chronic diseases, normalization of the microclimate at home to reduce the frequency of acute respiratory viral infections, hardening and other restorative procedures - all this can be prescribed by a doctor to achieve remission.

ENT can help restore health for proper tongue function

1. Contact an orthodontist.

Only in this order, otherwise the treatment will not be effective. As soon as the child is able to breathe with his mouth closed, you can move on to correcting the position of the teeth and tongue.

For this purpose, children's orthodontic devices have been created:

• Plates.
• Trainers.
• Twin Block device.
• Children's aligners Kinder Smile.

All these devices are removable and act quite gently, guiding teeth during the period of their active growth. Wearing requires parental supervision, but with proper use, problems are solved quite quickly - within a few months.

Only after this can you begin classes with a speech therapist - when the malocclusion and the main manifestations of tongue dysfunction are eliminated, the correction of sound pronunciation will be much more successful.

Nuances that should alert you

Most diseases accompanied by tongue protrusion in infants respond well to treatment, especially if they are identified and treated at an early stage. A protruding tongue rarely acts as the only symptom of the disease (the exception is when the baby constantly shows only the tip of the tongue from the mouth).

Sometimes this phenomenon is perceived as one of the symptoms of dementia, but debility in babies under one year old can only be congenital and is accompanied by specific symptoms that are difficult to confuse with anything. In addition to the fact that the child’s mouth is open and his tongue is sticking out, parents should be alerted to the appearance of one of the following nuances:

• swelling of the tongue;
• dry skin;
• the baby does not pull out his tongue, but falls out, cannot keep it in his mouth;
• pale yellow skin;
• the child is constantly worried, cries, sleeps poorly;
• the baby often spits up;
• the baby constantly sticks out only the tip of his tongue;
• pulsating and bulging fontanelle;
• in a dream the head is thrown back;
• there is a white coating on the tongue and in the oral cavity;
• the child’s inability to control his facial expressions.

Tongue keeps falling out of mouth

Why does a child's mouth remain open and his tongue keep falling out? This may indicate that he is suffering from hypothyroidism. The disease develops in children whose mothers experienced iodine deficiency during pregnancy. In modern perinatal centers, tests for hypothyroidism are taken from a child almost immediately after birth.

Obvious symptoms of the pathology become noticeable from 3-4 months of age. The tongue becomes large, swollen and does not fit completely into the oral cavity. There is also a delay in development, roughness of facial features, the skin becomes dry and acquires a yellowish tint. If such symptoms appear, you should consult a doctor immediately.

Newborn sticks out tongue and throws back head

If a newborn throws his head back in his sleep and sticks his tongue out of his mouth, this may indicate that the child is suffering from intracranial pressure. Some children with this diagnosis are characterized by throwing their head back not only during sleep, but also during feeding. In international pediatric practice, ICP is considered a serious, dangerous and very rare disease that can only be treated in a hospital setting.

Pediatric doctors in the CIS, on the contrary, often diagnose this pathology, and the pathology is not always considered an indication for hospitalization. Throwing back the head may indicate muscle hypertonicity. To determine the cause of symptoms, it is recommended to do an ultrasound of the brain.

A white coating is visible on the tongue

If a baby suffers from an oral disease, he sticks out his tongue to relieve his condition a little. Newborns are often diagnosed with stomatitis and candidiasis (thrush). In the first case, there will be ulcers on the mucous membranes in the mouth, and in the second, parents will find a white coating on the tongue. It may take several weeks or months for the child's condition to normalize.

How to cope with unpleasant symptoms?

It is important to avoid consuming raw vegetables and fruits that cause reactions, especially during allergy season. This is due to the fact that for many people, oral allergy syndrome develops more often and is more difficult during the flowering season of certain plants. You can reduce cross-reaction with food by boiling or baking vegetables and fruits, since proteins that cause allergies are destroyed at high temperatures.

Symptoms of allergic rhinitis and oral allergy syndrome can be managed with antihistamines. However, when it comes to treating a child, the choice of medications must be approached with great caution. First generation antihistamines can cause severe sedation and impaired psychomotor activity.

The main causes of itchy tongue

The cause of itching of the tongue can be: an inflammatory process, traumatic damage to the mucous membrane, nervous disorders or other infectious, viral, bacterial diseases.

Glossitis

This damage to the tongue, which is inflammatory in nature, occurs both as an independent disease and as a symptom of other pathologies.

The disease has acute and chronic forms.

Glossitis occurs as a consequence of impaired capillary circulation of the mucous membrane.

Most often, glossitis is a combination of various causes. It begins from the sum of problems of the oral cavity and digestive tract that arise as a result of a burn or injury.

There are several types of the most common glossitis:

1. Catarrhal - the tongue becomes bright red, becomes smooth and shiny. There is a thick coating on the tongue. The patient experiences a feeling of pain, burning of the tongue, loss of taste. The causes of this type of glossitis are: influenza, acute respiratory infections, diseases of the gastrointestinal tract, multiple caries.
2. Ulcerative is one of the signs of such a disease as ulcerative necrotizing stomatitis. Occurs against the background of a sharp decline in immunity, forming erosions and ulcers, a dirty gray coating and bad breath.
3. Desquamative – experts consider it as a symptom of systemic pathologies of the body: disturbances in the functioning of digestion, hematopoiesis, failures of metabolic processes (metabolism), kidney disease, dysbacteriosis, etc. It is expressed in the form of bright red shiny spots, or areas of thickening of the papillae of the tongue.
4. Tongue abscess - occurs and develops when the tongue is injured. This type of glossitis lasts quite a long time and is difficult. With an abscess, the tongue swells, and some parts of it become red. If the lesions are located deep at the root of the tongue, difficulty swallowing and breathing may occur.

The second classification divides glossitis into 3 groups:

Inflammatory – infectious in nature:

• viral;
• herpetic;
• candida;
• bacterial.

Selected pathologies:

• surface;
• deep;
• catarrhal

Non-inflammatory are symptoms of other diseases:

• desquamative;
• median rhomboid;
• atrophic;
• Gunter's;
• folded;
• interstitial;
• villous.

Glossitis occurs in acute and chronic forms. The acute form appears as inflammation of the tongue, change in color and structure. Chronic glossitis has more varied symptoms, but, as a rule, the disease is diagnosed by the presence or absence of papillomas.

Signs of glossitis are:

• the appearance of uneven plaque spots on the tongue;
• ulcers;
• change in tongue color;
• swelling and presence of teeth marks on the lateral surfaces of the tongue;
• difficulty moving the tongue;
• bad breath;
• impaired salivation.

Mechanical injury

A child can easily injure his tongue while eating, or when chewing on another rattle.

Often in babies, injuries can occur during teething.

Lollipops (and other solid foods) can cause tongue injury in older children if not taken care of.

And sometimes even when talking, you can damage your tongue by biting it.

In addition, you can get injured:

• dental instruments – bur, probe;
• exposure to a sharp object - fork, bone, knife;
• biting the tongue during an epileptic seizure;
• injuries from a blow to the face.

Due to mechanical trauma, ulcers and erosions form on the surface of the tongue.

Mechanical injuries to the tongue are usually not treated; they heal on their own over time. The recovery period for injured tissue depends on the depth and location of the tongue lesion.

Nervous disorders

Experts do not give a definite answer, but are inclined to believe that disorders of the nervous system and its malfunctions can also cause itching and worsening of the condition.

If a person is in a state of depression, then the volume and composition of his saliva changes.

If a child has become overly aggressive, or, on the contrary, is silent and shows nervousness, then it is necessary to pay close attention to this point.

Talk to him, find out the reason for this behavior, provide the child with psychological relief so that the accumulating negative energy does not destroy the baby’s nervous system, lead to a breakdown, and subsequent deterioration of his condition.

Deficiency of nutrients

As a rule, in the spring, the body of a child, and even an adult, begins to lack some vitamins. As a result, itching of the tongue can begin due to a deficiency of nutrients in the body. A lack of iron, vitamin B12 and folic acid can provoke various types of pathologies in the body.

If there is a lack of vitamins of various groups, in addition to itching on the tongue, the following may appear:

• white and red pimples;
• the tongue may become inflamed;
• small cracks appear on the lips, and peeling around;
• lack of vitamins B2 and B6 can cause conjunctivitis;
• Itching and inflammation can also result from a lack of niacin and vitamin C.

To make up for the deficiency, you need to follow your diet. Meals should be balanced, eat more fruits and vegetables and walk outdoors more often.

Candidiasis

This is an infectious disease of the oral mucosa, also known as thrush. It is caused by the Candida fungus due to extremely low immunity, and as a concomitant disease with problems of the gastrointestinal tract. Oral thrush in children is caused by yeast flora.

Candidiasis exists in 2 forms - acute and chronic. The acute form is typical for children.

You can get a candidiasis infection in 3 ways:

1. contact;
2. airborne;
3. intrauterine.

The development of candidiasis can also be stimulated by:

• increased acidity in the oral cavity;
• diseases of the gastrointestinal tract;
• long-term use of antibiotics;
• use of hormone-containing drugs.

If a child has contracted the candidiasis virus, then it is easy to determine it yourself, but you must immediately consult a doctor to prescribe effective treatment, and not do it yourself. A strong white coating appears on the gums, the inner surface of the cheeks, and on the tongue, under which damaged tissue is hidden. Foci of inflammation can spread to the tonsils, pharynx, corners of the mouth and lip contour.

Associated symptoms expressed by older children may be complaints of pain in the oral cavity when eating, itching, burning in the oral mucosa.

Children show discomfort by refusing to eat, excessive tearfulness, irritability, and sleep disturbances.

Sticks out his tongue - note to mothers)) article

A baby may simply stick out its tongue because it once saw a similar “gesture” in adults. If a child sticks out his tongue at 2, 3, 4, 5 or more months, inspect his mouth. Perhaps he is simply teething, his gums are swollen and he is simply “exploring” the new reliefs of his mouth.

He can also move his tongue, because it is a muscle. Therefore, if a newborn shows and sticks out his tongue only occasionally, this is an element of a kind of exercise. If your newborn often sticks out his tongue, pay attention to his oral cavity.