Can snoring and sleep apnea in children be prevented?

Video Overview

Hi I'm Richard Jacobson, board certified orthodontist, faculty at UCLA for 30 years, 30 years private practice here in Pacific Palisades where I'm director of Face center LA. Can snoring and sleep apnea in children be prevented? Fortunately, for all of us, the answer is a resounding yes. In addition to going to your pediatrician and making certain that the tonsils and the adenoids are not causing the blockage, orthodontists that are trained in sleep medicine and cephalometrics can measure to see if there are any skeletal disparities. And if there are, there are simple appliances that can be placed to normalize that. For example, an appliance called a palatal distraction appliance. It's custom-made and fitted into the child's mouth so that it's comfortable and easily tolerated. It has a little expansion screw with a mid-palatal suture that is gently distracted, creating room for all of the teeth and, very gently, over a period of a few months, distracted sufficiently to a normal airway.