When we have to to check with the dentist or what is the right age to check for teeth alignment?
Improper alignment of teeth may be because of many reasons….like improper habits like thumbsucking, mouth breathing, inadequate jaw growth, improper positioning of the tongue and many more. Usually we get misleaded by people telling clip can be fixed only after 12 years of age without knowing the underlying problem. Most of us will be concerned on protruded upper front tooth and we think we have to wait till 12 years to correct that.Actually the problem may not be protruded teeth but may be some other issue making the teeth look proclined. If you go to a dentist after 12 years, only the alignment of the teeth can be corrected but if dental checkup is being done at the age of 8 to 10 the cause of it can be corrected and Mal alignment of teeth can be prevented. This will eliminate the necessity of removal of tooth in order to align the teeth or even the clip treatment may not be required later.
There are a lot of treatment options for Breaking the improper habits, positioning and guiding the jaw to grow in the proper way, gain space for the tooth to get into position and so on. Further to make it interesting these clips can be customised with unique designs and colours etc to motivate the kids to wear it properly. These are very simple, easy to use and cheaper than fixed clips. So, Regular dental check up in this perspective every 6 months would avoid major treatment requirements later.

But how do we know whether our child requires these kind of treatment or not?
Mostly when the teeth are protruded we will automatically see the dentist. Apart from that, if the child has habits like thumb sucking, mouth breathing etc, or there is a lot of gap between teeth or the teeth are more crooked, overlapping, or child does not keep the mouth closed at rest, let’s meet our dentist and get benefitted. Hope this gives you a better understanding that age is not the criteria for starting treatment for teeth alignment. Regular dental checkups will give us scope for prevention and simple procedures and the child will never be anxious about the dental appointment.