One of the most challenging things for new parents (aside from the total lifestyle change that comes with a new baby!) is feeding time. Whether you choose to breastfeed or offer formula, you want the best for your baby. So it’s understandable when there are struggles surrounding feeding. Of all of the things that can cause challenges with nursing or taking a bottle, knowing how to look for high arched palate may be the most important skill you bring home from the hospital. Here’s how to look for high arched palate in your kids.
What is high arched palate?
A high arched palate refers to the upper (hard) palate in the mouth. Developing in utero and continuing to form during baby’s first year, a high arched palate is taller and narrower than is optimal for easy nursing or bottle feeding.
While some babies have a high arched palate as a distinct condition, there are a number of other syndromes that have high-arched palate as one of their symptoms. These include:
- Crouzon syndrome
- Down syndrome
- Apert syndrome
- Treacher Collins syndrome
- Marfan syndrome
- Incontinentia pigmenti
High arched palate is a congenital birth defect that affects an estimated 30% of people in the U.S.
8 high arched palate symptoms
A high arched palate can set off a chain of events in your newly expanded household that can become one of the most difficult parts of baby’s first year. There are eight characteristic high arched palate symptoms, including:
- Difficulty nursing or bottle feeding
- Excess gas
- Difficulty breathing through the nose
- Difficulty clearing nasal congestion
- Challenging sleep issues
- Changes in the bony structure of the face
- Development of speech issues
- Risk for poor oral health
1. Difficulty nursing or bottle feeding
Whether breast or bottle feeding, a baby uses suction (latch) on the nipple to encourage milk to flow. With a high-arched palate, the narrow space does not allow for proper suction.
2. Excess gas
Because baby cannot create a proper seal, they may end up sucking in more air than milk. This can result in painful gas. Excess gas can be very uncomfortable, and they may be put off feeding if they begin to associate feeding with pain.
3. Difficulty breathing through the nose
The upper palate is also the floor of the nasal cavity. A higher palate means less room in the nasal cavity.
Mouth breathing may be the only option to get air, and it’s hard to breathe through an open mouth and nurse at the same time.
4. Difficulty clearing nasal congestion
Narrow nasal passages also make clearing congestion harder. These spaces are already very small. As they shrink, clearing them becomes harder.
5. Challenging sleep issues
As babies grow and their high arched palate symptoms progress, the risk for sleep apnea becomes more serious.
While babies are safest on their back, they may not be able to get enough oxygen unless they sleep on their side.
6. Change in the bony structure of the face
The bony structures change as your baby grows, but eventually the bones harden and the structure is set.
Changes to the facial structure may occur, including narrowing between the eyes and a downturned mouth.
7. Development of speech issues
In speech, consonants use the tongue striking the upper palate in their formation. If the upper palate is out of the reach of the tongue, speech issues may develop as a result.
8. Risk for poor oral health
Because the space in the nasal cavity is narrow and causes mouth-breathing, as babies grow into the toddlers they have an increased risk of poor oral health.
Dry mouth caused by mouth breathing is a prime suspect in an increased incidence of pediatric cavities.
Getting a high arched palate diagnosis
The most common way to get a high arched palate diagnosis is visually. Many pediatricians make this quick visual check a standard part of baby’s first examination after birth.
Other high arched palate criteria are somewhat complicated but there are more standardized diagnostic criteria. Using mouse models, researchers looked at specific dimensions – palate shelf length, shelf width, arch height, and arch angle – to find the mean (middle) measurement of each feature. Once they found the middle, they concluded that a high-arched palate has measurements that are two standard deviations above the middle measurement.
While your baby might protest the measuring, for parents, this high arched palate criteria eliminates guessing in favor of a consistent and measurable diagnosis. This proper diagnosis can offer a sense of relief and a path forward towards high arched palate treatment.
What are high arched palate treatments?
For babies who are still breastfeeding or bottle feeding, working with a lactation consultant to develop optimal attachment is your first option. While not a treatment, per se, it can help you nourish your baby while you explore other options.
High arched palate treatment options focus on creating more space in the upper palate. There are three essential ways to approach this.
1. Repositioning and strengthening the tongue
Repositioning and strengthening the tongue is key to helping your child develop their speech. One of the effects of a high arched palate is a broad, flat tongue that struggles to correctly form consonants. Tongue repositioning exercises help build up what is, essentially, a muscle.
While this does not solve the structural problem of high arched palate, this can help your child develop several “work arounds,” thereby reducing the risk of a speech impediment.
2. Expanding the hard palate
Babies are marvelously adaptable. In some cases, they figure out how to eat without pain. They may not even develop any speech issues. However, as they enter adolescence and start their orthodontic work, their narrow palate may make positioning brackets and wires challenging.
In this case, a palate expander can help gradually move the bones of the upper palate apart, creating more space for bite correction.
3. Surgery
If a high arched palate is causing sleep apnea and respiratory challenges that are not helped by the above treatments, you may consider oral-maxillofacial surgery.
This surgery opens the upper palate and widens the nasal passages. Breathing may come easier, and sleep apnea may be fixed. Because it is a surgical procedure, however, it’s best to consider it only after exhausting other therapies.
If you need to know how to look for a high arched palate, get in touch with AZ Dentist, your Phoenix area family dentist. Our gentle dentists can help even the smallest of patients.
Leave A Comment