Damaging oral habits

Oral habits, if persist beyond certain developmental age, can pose great harm to the developing teeth, occlusion, and surrounding oral tissues. In the formative years, almost all children engage in some non-nutritive sucking habits. Clinicians, by proper differential diagnosis and thorough understanding of natural growth and developmental processes, should take a decision for intervening. This article describes case series reports of thumb sucking, finger sucking, and tongue thrusting habits, which have been successfully treated by both removable and fixed orthodontic appliances. The cases shown are ranging from the age group of 9-19 years presenting combination of both mixed and permanent dentition development. All cases show satisfactory correction of habits and stable results.