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James Monroe Adams IV for New York Daily News
Dr. Peter J. Taub, a pediatric reconstructive and plastic surgeon at Mount Sinai Medical Center.
The specialist:
Professor of surgery, pediatrics, and dentistry at Mount Sinai Medical Center, Dr. Peter J. Taub is a plastic and reconstructive surgeon and the chief of craniomaxillofacial surgery. July is national cleft and craniofacial awareness month.
Who’s at risk:
While clefts of the lip and palate have enjoyed more public awareness thanks to organizations like Operation Smile and Komedyplast, other craniofacial conditions still remain under the radar for many Americans. “Craniofacial anomalies refer to malformations of the head or face, usually due to birth defects but sometimes resulting from injury,” says Taub. “In addition to clefts of the lip and palate, deformities of the jaws are relatively common — they involve the abnormal development of either the upper or lower jaw, which causes the teeth to be out of alignment.” The National Center for Health Statistics reports that one in five kids between age 12 and 17 have a jaw deformity.
To the layperson, jaw deformities present as either an underbite or overbite. “The teeth are designed so that they all make contact simultaneously, which best distributes the large forces encountered with chewing,” says Taub. “For kids with a jaw deformity, sometimes only two teeth make contact with biting, which transmits a lot of pressure to the jaw joint and causes injury over time.”
Jaw deformities become more pronounced as the facial structure grows over time. “Most kids are diagnosed between the time they lose their primary baby teeth and the time their secondary adult teeth erupt, roughly between 6 and 12 years of age,” says Taub. “Dentists are usually the ones who pick up on the problem.” Milder cases of jaw deformity can be treated with braces alone, while more severe cases require a combination of braces and jaw reconstruction.
Unlike most conditions, there are no real risk factors for jaw deformities, and they aren’t preventable. “Genetics are the root cause of jaw deformity, which affects both boys and girls, and people from every racial background,” says Taub. “These conditions can run in families, like the royal Habsburgs of Austria, who ancestors were known to have a prognathic appearance due to a large lower jaw.”
Signs and symptoms:
You don’t have to be a doctor to recognize jaw deformities, which are visible to the naked eye. “You can tell by the way the child or adolescent looks — the facial profile is abnormal,” says Taub. “Most people will recognize the misalignment as an underbite or an overbite.”
