Mouth breathing in children: Causes, Diagnosis and Treatment - Dr. Satish Babu K

Childhood Mouth breathing can be because of two reasons. One is because of some obstruction in the airway, especially part of the airway that is above the voice box or it can be a habitual one which usually flows some long standing obstruction which may or may not have got relief and the baby still continues to habitually breathe though the mouth. Now the obstruction of the airway can be as simple a s a blocked nose because of some chronic cold or some deformities inside the nose here the centre partition is deviated or the tissues are not developed properly the way it should be or it can be a congenital one or by birth there can be obstruction in the back of the nose and the air passage turns towards the throat, what we call as choanal atresia. It can be one sided or both sides. It can be a narrowing or a complete block. It can be simple things like grossly swollen tonsils which are three dimensionally enlarged and it can block the passage of air into the nostrils. The upper part of the voice box or the larynx can be having some deformities form birth which can be handled in the free breaching but that is a very rare situation. How to diagnose this obstruction, we have to locate this obstruction first. Simple things like x ray or nasal endoscopy can be performed at the out patient centre and we can locate the basic obstruction levels and to conform we can go for further investigations like CT scan and MRI which can give us the extent of the obstruction and the exact location of the obstruction based on the obstruction the cause, like if there is a chronic cold or allergic issues, we can treat the baby with long term antiallergic medications here the tissues will shrink and open up and the mouth breathing reduces and we can go for seam inhalation before the baby goes to bed which will help in decongesting. The medications will usually be in the form of antiallergic and anti cold syrups and nasal drops and sometimes nasal spray the next level when these measurs do not help or when the obstruction is more significant then we think of surgical opening of the airway. It can be a simple as removal of the tonsils or adenoids or removal of the obstruction in the level of the tongue or the back side of the nose. The swollen tissues in the nostrils maybe like polyps can be removed surgically and the air passage is restored so that the baby can sleep with the mouth closed and peaceful the sleep can be ensured.