Age six — not thirteen. By the time crooked teeth are obvious, the easiest window has usually closed.
Around age six, when the permanent teeth are about to erupt. Over-retained milk teeth, inadequate space, jaw growth discrepancy and habits such as thumb sucking all call for intervention at that stage — long before crooked teeth become visible.
Most parents bring a child to an orthodontist when the teeth start looking crowded, which is usually around eleven or twelve. By then the permanent teeth have already erupted into whatever space was available to them, and the job becomes moving teeth that have settled.
At six, the picture is different. The permanent teeth are still on their way, the jaws are still growing, and small interventions can change where those teeth end up rather than correcting them afterwards.
Baby teeth that have not come out when they should. The permanent tooth beneath is forced to erupt around them, often coming through behind or in front of where it belongs.
If the arch is too small for the teeth queued up behind it, crowding is not a possibility — it is an arithmetic certainty. Seen early, space can be managed. Seen late, teeth have to be moved or removed.
Where the upper and lower jaws are growing at different rates. This is the category where early treatment matters most, because the growth itself can be guided. Once growth finishes, the same problem is a surgical one rather than an orthodontic one.
Thumb sucking and lip biting cause the upper front teeth to procline — angle forward — which leads to speech problems, mouth-breathing habits and poor aesthetics. Intercepting the habit is easier than correcting its consequences.
A child who habitually breathes through the mouth rather than the nose is worth examining properly. It affects facial growth, and it frequently travels with other findings such as tongue tie, which restricts the tongue movement needed for normal swallowing, speech and jaw development. It also appears among the causes of orofacial pain later in life.
Preventive orthodontics at this age is usually simple and short. Corrective treatment, if it comes later, has options that did not exist a generation ago: clear aligners that need no brackets or wires, ceramic braces that are tooth-coloured, or lingual braces fitted behind the teeth so they are invisible from the front.
The point of the early visit is not to start treatment. It is to find out whether the window that closes is currently open.
Around six years old, when the permanent teeth are about to erupt.
Yes. Thumb sucking and lip biting cause the upper front teeth to procline, leading to speech problems, mouth-breathing habits and poor aesthetics.
Over-retained milk teeth, inadequate space for permanent teeth, jaw growth discrepancy, and habits such as thumb sucking.
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