Oral Malocclusion and Its Relation to Nutritive and Non-nutritive Habits in School Children

Oral habits are customs acquired by the repetition of a series of events that serve to calm an emotional need. Early diagnosis of these anomalous habits is crucial to the early prevention or correction of malocclusions. The objective of the study is to determine the prevalence of malocclusion in school and its possible relationship with the nutritive and non-nutritive habits. Design: Cross- sectional study on 113 school children with ages between 3 and 8 years old. Surveys were carried out from parents related to nutritional habits and non-nutritive. Results: The prevalence of children with malocclusion class II is 34.5%, followed by overjet (33.6%), cross bite (10.6%), open bite (9.7%) and the habits of lip interposition (15%), lingual habit (11.5%) and oral breath (7.1%). There is a statistically significant relationship (p˂0, 05) between the habit of snoring at night with the overjet (p = 0, 001), also with class II molar (p = 0.037) and with oral breath (p = 0.016). Finally, there is a statistically significant relationship between prolonged bottle habit (p = 0.047) with the posterior crossbite. Conclusions: The habits of nutritive and non-nutritive sucking in the early stages of the childhood, may be a risk factor for the development of class II molar, increased overjet and posterior crossbite malocclusion.