A lot of my patients asked me whether or not I treat kids and if so when would be the ideal time to bring a child into their first orthodontic consultation. Well the short answer is yes I do treat children in they are often a joy to treat because at that age, often we can avoid a lot of future complications or future treatment such as the need for jaw surgery or orthodontic extractions. The important thing to understand with children is that they are growing individuals and most of the treatment is focused on harnessing that growth. What that means is that often treating them at a young age allows us to do the treatment faster and allows us to get a better result as well. Once there upper jaw stops growing, which happens at around age 12, then we start to become limited in what we can do so what that means is the ideal time to bring your child in for the first consultation is before that upper jaw growth spurt and that would be around age 7.

Now not all problems can be treated at a young age in fact some problems such as a large lower jaw should be left until they are adults have stopped growing. However if you would like your child to be treated at the most ideal time and get the best result in the longterm, it’s best to leave that up to the experts so what you should do is look in to bring your child in at the age of 7 for the first orthodontic consultation and let us monitor your child and determine the ideal time to treat them.