Early Correction of  Finger Sucking

As we might know, finger sucking is a bad oral habit of children, leading to tooth misalignment.  It is very difficult to fix.  It appears that early correction is easier and more practical.

Ms. Liu is a 6-month-old lovely girl with finger sucking.  She sucks her thumb whenever she is hungry and goes to bed no matter what position she is sleeping with (Fig.1,2).  She cries if her mother removes the thumb out of her mouth before she falls into sleep. 

Her mother is determined to fix the bad habit as early as possible.  She removes the baby finger whenever the latter is going to the mouth.  The mother feeds her whenever she is crying.

The habit appears to have been fixed (Fig.3,4), although the baby's right hand has tendency to be ready to send the thumb into the happy world.  The four fingers have been bent, while the thumb is approaching the mouth.  We assume that the mommy is watching and taking action if necessary.

It appears that finger sucking is finally fixed by applying pig bile over the finger.  One year later, the mom reports no relapse of finger biting.

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Xin Wei, DDS, PhD, MS 1st edition 09/04/2014, last revision 04/17/2015