11/01/2024
What are the consequences of the shrinking human face?
The maxilla is centrally located within the skull and makes up the center of the face. The lower portion of the maxilla is connected to the upper teeth through the alveolar process. The roots of the teeth form grooves that extend up the anterior portion of the maxilla.
Above the mouth, in the nose, the nasal airways control the absolutely critical function of breathing.
The mucous membrane lining the maxillary sinuses function to warm and humidify the air we breathe and to produce mucus, which functions as an immune defence. The maxillary sinuses can be prone to disease processes including both benign and malignant growths and infections. It also houses precious nitrous oxide, which increases blood flow through respiration as well as activating mitochondrial activity.
Weston Price found that jaw growth was stunted from the picture on the left, to people with narrow faces and crooked teeth.
Since Price’s time it has been identified that facial muscle activity also impacts the growth of the maxilla bone. The tongue, the cheeks, the lips, and the chewing muscles are all key players. Pulling and pushing in all of the right places makes perfect jaws.
For these muscles to do their job and do it well, we need to have 3 things in place: proper resting oral posture, proper swallow, a lot of chewing.
How can you support good maxillary posture?
• When not eating or speaking, our mouth posture should be this: lips sealed, tongue on the roof of the mouth, teeth lightly touching or slightly apart. With the tongue resting on the roof of the mouth and the mouth closed, the perfect balance occurs. The light pressure from the tongue acts as the scaffold for a perfect broad U-shaped palate. There is no inward counter force from the cheeks or lips. In this posture, we are nasal breathing.
• A correct swallow occurs with the tongue pushing up and sliding back on the roof of the mouth, efficiently delivering the food bolus or the drink straight down the hatch. This force of the tongue on the palate puts the perfect amount of lateral force on the left and right segments of the maxilla, encouraging growth at the suture. A tongue that appropriately rests on the roof of the mouth supports the maxilla.
Have you noticed a narrow jaw in your family?
