Why do children breathe with their mouths open? Will they really get uglier the longer they sleep?

Not long ago, Laoba Review received a letter from a student fan. The fan wrote in the letter that he had the habit of breathing with his mouth open when sleeping. In order to improve it, he started using [Anti-Mouth Breathing Patch], commonly known as Sealing Patch.

During use, he found that the seal had a strong odor. Having read many reviews from fathers, he began to worry whether he was using a "toxic sticker"? Would it contain substances that are harmful to the body? So he sent the seal to us and asked us to help test it.

1. Is the sealing tape toxic? The researcher carefully observed the samples sent by fans and found that the sealing tape and plastic wrap are "related" in terms of product material, both of which are made of polyethylene (PE).

Based on the possible problems with this material, we arranged some routine testing items, including phthalates, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and heavy metal content. Fortunately, none of the above harmful chemicals were detected in the samples.

But does this mean we can use it with confidence?

In order to be responsible to the fans, the researcher dug deeper into this kind of sealing sticker. You will be surprised to find that many parents are using sealing stickers on their children, and some products have a monthly sales volume of more than 10,000.

Most of the best-selling mouth sealing stickers claim in their product introductions that they can help develop the habit of breathing through the nose and alleviate the problem of dry mouth caused by mouth breathing.

But can simply sealing the mouth really change the long-standing habit of mouth breathing?

Mouth breathing is just a symptom, and what we should really pay attention to is the reason behind it. Rather than simply using a sticker to close your mouth, you should know why you can't close your mouth!

2. Why do children breathe through their mouths? As we all know, our normal breathing method is nasal breathing. Mouth breathing is caused by some specific problems, which can be classified as obstructive and habitual according to the cause.

01 Obstructive mouth breathing Obstructive mouth breathing is when the airflow cannot enter the lungs through the nasal cavity, but enters the lungs through the mouth. It is like a traffic jam on the road, so we have to take another route.

Common causes of poor nasal airflow include nasal congestion caused by allergic rhinitis or chronic rhinitis, obesity, enlarged tonsils or adenoids, etc.

Image source: References

Among them, the most common reason is enlarged adenoids, which cause nasal breathing problems, leading to mouth breathing. Long-term adenoid facies can occur.

Adenoids, also called pharyngeal tonsils or adenomas, like tonsils, will gradually grow larger as children grow older. The adenoids proliferate most vigorously between the ages of 2 and 6, but after the age of 10, the adenoids will gradually shrink.

Adenoids hypertrophy occurs when various reasons lead to pathological proliferation of adenoids, which can cause symptoms such as nasal congestion, snoring, and mouth breathing; moreover, this symptom is more severe during sleep at night.

Image source: https://medlineplus.gov/ency/imagepages/19259.htm

If a child frequently experiences partial or complete upper airway obstruction during sleep, which interferes with the child's normal ventilation and sleep, parents need to take the child to see a doctor to consider whether it is obstructive sleep apnea (OSA).

Image source: Mayo Clinic

02 Habitual mouth breathing Habitual mouth breathing is often the latter stage of obstruction. We have solved the problem of nasal airway obstruction, but some children's neuromuscular system has adapted to mouth breathing and cannot change the habit of mouth breathing.

3. What are the dangers of mouth breathing? So, what are the dangers of mouth breathing? Why do so many parents use mouth-sealing tape on their children?

Parents are anxious about their children's mouth breathing and are willing to "seal" their children's mouths because long-term adenoids hypertrophy can cause abnormal facial features, and the most common symptom of adenoids hyperplasia is mouth breathing, especially when sleeping at night.

Some children's faces will gradually become less "harmonious", with conditions such as buck teeth, crowded teeth, and mandibular retraction appearing.

Image source: References

At the same time, mouth breathing can make people feel dry mouth, which affects oral health and causes problems such as gingivitis and bad breath.

Obstructive sleep apnea in children caused by mouth breathing will have certain adverse effects on children's learning, life, growth and development.

4. How to prevent mouth breathing scientifically? In this regard, we consulted Dr. Sun Fangzhou, the attending physician of a tertiary hospital with more than ten years of experience in pediatric diagnosis and treatment, to give you professional judgment and medical advice.

First of all, parents should rule out mouth breathing caused by colds, stuffy noses, or tonsillitis. In this case, the child will recover and the problem will be over.

What we need to pay attention to is the diseases caused by long-term, chronic and repeated "mouth breathing" in children.

Obstructive sleep apnea in children refers to a series of pathophysiological changes caused by frequent partial or complete upper airway obstruction during children's sleep, which interferes with the children's normal ventilation and sleep structure.

Determining whether a child has obstructive sleep apnea is a very professional matter and may require multiple professional consultations and examinations by pediatricians, otolaryngologists, dentists, etc. to clarify.

Parents can detect early abnormalities in their children through the following symptoms and signs and seek medical attention in time.

BMI values ​​at different ages:

For consultation, you can choose to go to the pediatric otolaryngology department, pediatric respiratory department, or oral and maxillofacial surgery department of your local hospital.

The doctor will confirm whether the child has obstructive sleep apnea and treat it according to the cause.

Finally, my father recommends: If your child has mouth breathing problems, please seek medical attention immediately! Do not use anti-mouth breathing patches at will.

On the one hand, a large part of the reason for mouth breathing is that the nasal passage is not smooth and the airway is blocked, so mouth breathing is needed for emergency assistance. At this time, if you put your mouth on, how can you breathe? Isn't it a disguised way to cause suffocation in children?

On the other hand, when children are sleeping, they may unconsciously rub their faces with their hands, and accidentally rub the sealing sticker, which may cause accidental swallowing or blockage of the nostrils, posing a greater danger to the children!

For children who breathe through their mouths, using a sealing tape is just a cover-up and cannot solve the underlying problem. It can also cause parents to ignore the problem and delay timely diagnosis and treatment.

Of course, some children just sleep with their mouths open instead of breathing through their mouths.

When parents are unsure, they can use the following methods to test:

References:

[1] Guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of obstructive sleep apnea in children in China (2020)[J]. Chinese Journal of Otorhinolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery, 2020, 55(08):729-747.

[2] Wu Panting, Xu Zhifei. Research progress on the impact of obstructive sleep apnea syndrome on cognitive function in children[J]. Chinese Journal of Pediatrics, 2021, 59(03): 254-256.

[3]https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/obstructive-sleep-apnea/symptoms-causes/syc-20352090

[4] https://www.coastdental.com.sg/the-harmful-effects-of-mouth-breathing/

[5] Catalano, P., Md., & Walker, JN (2018). understanding nasal breathing the key to evaluating and treating sleep disordered breathing in adults and children.

[6] Otorhinolaryngology, People’s Medical Publishing House