Malocclusion is usually known as an inherited or congenital condition. However, in many cases it is caused in early childhood by prolonged use of a pacifier or bottle/breast feeding, thumb/foreign object sucking, injuries that result in the misalignment of the jaw, poor dental care that results in improperly fitting dental restorations or untreated carious lesions, primary teeth extractions without space maintainers, mouth breathing, potentially caused by allergies or airway obstruction by enlarged adenoids/tonsils or bad habits. The consequences of malocclusion in children are deplorable, leading to improper alignment of the teeth, alteration in the appearance of the face, self-esteem problems, frequent biting of the inner cheeks or tongue, discomfort when chewing or biting, speech problems, including the development of a lisp, mouth breathing resulting in adenoid and long face formation, trauma and caries susceptibility. It is therefore important to explore the association between the type of bad oral habit and the kind of malocclusion in children in order to predict the future malocclusion type in early childhood and educate parents with evidence-based data how to prevent malocclusion development in their children.
Keywords:Children; Malocclusion; Oral Habit; Primary Dentition; Teeth