Many open mouth habits can be traced back to breathing issues such as allergies, chronic colds/stuffy noses, enlarged tonsils and adenoids, asthma, a deviated nasal septum, and much more. The interesting thing to note is that once the airway problem is resolved, the habit remains.
A facial appearance characterized by a permanently or nearly permanently opened mouth. [ from HPO]
Improper oral resting posture impacts the growth of jaw and facial structures and can cause delayed or improper development, potentially leading to difficulties with chewing and swallowing. An open mouth posture can also result in dry mouth and overall poor oral hygiene.
Very often, an opened-mouth posture is the result of an upper airway restriction caused by allergies, enlarged tonsils or adenoids, which can limit your ability to breathe comfortably through your nose.
To make things easier, consider creating a signal or buzzword to remind children to chew with their mouth closed. Depending on the ages of the child, this can be as simple as raising a hand when they chew with their mouth open or pointing to your mouth to remind them of the proper way to eat.
Help your child close their lips around the head of an electric toothbrush for 2-3 seconds with frequent breaks. Give them simple verbal directions such as “Close lips!” or “Squeeze!” Encourage your child to make an /m/ sound as he or she practices closing her lips around the device.
Lip incompetence is often an indication of nasal obstruction, sleep-disordered breathing, and enlarged tonsils. If the upper dental arch changes (narrow or high), it takes the space of nasal sinuses and inhibits nasal breathing.
To designate someone as a “mouth breather,” one of the following reasons might be to blame: An obstruction exists within the nasal passage. Your child has a deviated septum, polyps, or enlarged bones, vessels, or tissue in the nasal passageway (also known as turbinates) Tongue-tie (also known as ankyloglossia)
Speech Production
Children who are open-mouth breathers are more likely to have decreased muscle tone in the face. Weak facial muscles can severely impact speech production.
Patients with Down syndrome present mouth breathing, which is a consequence of the small size of the nasal cavity, but it is probably also due to continuous infection of the upper airways that force the patient to breathe through the mouth.
Lip incompetence, also known as mentalis strain, refers to a condition characterized by an inability to easily hold the lips together while at rest.
Autism and oral fixation are linked through sensory processing disorders. It involves chewing on things to alleviate anxiety and stress. Oral fixation is when you feel the need to chew, suck, or hold an object in your mouth. This behavior is common for babies, but generally alleviates as the child ages.
Less oxygen, along with poor sleep from other sleep-related breathing disorders (such as sleep apnea), is a problem. One study proved that mouth breathing brings less oxygen to the brain compared to nasal breathing, which adversely affects brain function and gives rise to ADHD symptoms.
Passive jaw opening is usually exe- cuted with both hands. The index or middle fingers are placed on the upper premolars and the thumbs on the lower incisal edges. The pa- tient opens the mouth as far as pos- sible and at the end of the active movement the clinician assists fur- ther opening.
37 In this study we found that mouth breathing in the first 3 years of life was associated with autism, but not symptoms of sleep apnoea, or early snoring except at 42 months.
Mouth Breathing Treatment and Prevention
If the shape of your nose or face is the cause of your mouth breathing, you might not be able to treat it directly. But if an underlying condition causes mouth breathing, your doctor will want to treat that first. Doing so might help you breathe through your nose better.
Some people breathe through their mouths almost exclusively, while others may have a medical condition (like sleep apnea) where they breathe through their mouths mostly at night. Occasional mouth breathing can be due to a temporary illness like a cold or other illness that has blocked the nasal passages.
The natural position for healthy breathing is always with a closed mouth, inhaling and exhaling through the nose.
Mouthing is most common in the first 2-3 years of life. It tends to peak at around 7.5 months, then decline to 12 months, then decline steeply, before fading to low levels at around 15.5 months (Belsky & Most, 1981).
Restricted mouth opening is a common complaint in patients suffering from temporomandibular joint disorders, ankylosis, impaired masticatory muscle function, rheumatic disease, infection, or malignancy.
Don't Overreact to Mild Disrespect. If she gets a reaction to her eye roll, that will often just reinforce the behavior because she knows she's gotten to you. Don't kid yourself: if you threaten your child by saying, “Don't do that to me, young lady, or you'll be grounded,” that will only make her do it more.
As you can see there are a few ways to train an open mouth behaviour. Some people train this behaviour by having a target on the nose and one on the chin of the animal and try to get the animal to open their mouth by themselves. This behaviour requires a lot of patience and very good timing of your bridge.
Babies typically start mouthing by 4 months, once they're able to bring their hands to their mouths and suck on their fingers. At 6 months, this habit kicks into overdrive, and your little one will start mouthing just about anything she can grab.
We expect kids who are two and under to use their mouths to help them learn or calm down—it's called oral sensory input. But the majority of children outgrow this behaviour by age three.