Crumbs and Smiles- Pediatric Feeding and Swallowing Therapy

01/17/2025

Learn from a CHOC expert how changing language around medical procedures can help reduce fear and confusion among children.

02/23/2023

https://apple.news/AtGMY8RXyQoiagznCtjJMcQ

Heather Rae El Moussa shared earlier this week she was having difficulty breastfeeding her newborn son Tristan as he had tongue, cheek and lip ties

11/16/2022

New on the blog is a message from Garrett Barnes, dad to Lucy. Learn more about their PFD story and as Garrett says, please remember these children and families this holiday season.

Read it here: https://bit.ly/3EtkVWH

11/16/2022

I'm so excited to be part of the Fall Family Festival! Come find my booth and say hi! 🙂

08/27/2022

Exposure to maternal voice twice a day for 20 min prior to feeding attempt increases oral intake in by 7.1%
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35982244/

08/22/2022

Credit studio

08/17/2022

Check your pantry!

READ MORE >>> http://bitly.ws/tpCu

08/12/2022

Container Syndrome is a term used to describe the lack of skill in infants who are not allowed ample movement opportunities. Container Baby Syndrome is the result of an infant being placed in a container for an excessive amount of time during the day. This extended time leads to structural, movement, and behavioral challenges as a result.

Baby containers include baby equipment and items such as:

👣Restrictive playpens
👣Crib
👣Car seats
👣Strollers
👣Bumbo seats
👣Bouncy seats and swings
👣Rockers
👣Nursing cushions
👣Vibrating chairs
👣Jumpers
👣Exersaucers
👣Positioning pillows
👣Slings
👣Floor seats
👣Infant swings
👣Walkers
👣Jumpers

All of the time spent in these baby containers adds up! When in a positioning device such as the ones listed above, little ones are limited in the motor development that results from stretching, wiggling, turning, reaching, and otherwise moving.

https://www.theottoolbox.com/container-baby-syndrome/

08/03/2022

07/28/2022

Chewing helps develop the use of the tongue by giving it a good workout, which is important for many different speech sounds like t, d, k and g, which are essential building blocks for speech development ✨

07/28/2022

Did you know your child’s habits influence their jaw development.

I think it’s important for parents to understand this, so they can make informed conscious decisions about what is right for their children.

Many people think crooked teeth are genetic or bad luck, well we can see here they are not.

Both extended pacifier use and thumb sucking demonstrate in stark clarity how the way we use our mouth shapes its growth and development.

In dental practice I see patients with open bites in adults quite regularly.

They either think it’s normal and say ‘Oh yes my front teeth don’t meet, it’s hard to bite food’, or want to correct the issue.

When we use root cause and functional diagnoses principles we can see that dental issues must be intervened in earlier, but there is also hope for those who have grown with the issue throughout their life.

Orthodontics and braces to correct this issue act to ‘drag’ the teeth down to close the bite. Problem is if there is a functional problem that remains, the teeth regress.

It happens quite frequently and is reported in the literature.

Looking at the photos above you can see a child at ages 2-4 who develop an open bite has high risk of other oral health problems.

These include:

Mouth breathing

Low tongue swallow.

In adults you can have reasonable success to correct these cases by addressing the causes. Training the tongue NOT to go into this place and orthopaedic guards to either prevent or recorrect the underdeveloped upper jaw.

However, treatment like this is always dependent on training and habit formation. So, it’s a lot of time and effort.

In kids you can close these bites in 3 months.

By using an approach that we want to correct oral habits at ages 4-6 instead of waiting until age 12-13.

The other side of the coin is that pacifier and thumb sucking habits hold hard in kids.

We only used a pacifier very sparingly for the first 4 or so months then mak sure to remove so that the baby can establish close oral posture.

I’d love to hear your experiences on thumb sucking and pacifier use.