PRESS RELEASE: Empowering Children Who Want to Stop Digit-Sucking

The Ace^TM Bandage approach is a cost-effective, alternative method for a child who wants to stop night-time digit-sucking. A recent clinical article in the November/December issue of Pediatric Dentistry, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry, outlined an approach to digit-sucking cessation giving more control and a sense of responsibility to an interested child.

Treatment for digit-sucking falls into three categories: reminder, reward, or appliance therapy. With a success rate of approximately 60%, the Ace^TM Bandage method is a combination of the reward and reminder programs. The most important requirements for successful treatment are the child’s desire to stop the habit and that the behavior occurs mostly at night. Habit cessation programs, however, should be postponed for children who have suffered recent emotional trauma (e.g., change of school, divorce of parents, or loss of pet). Parents are instructed to wrap the bandage from mid-arm to mid-forearm on a child—snug but not too tight. The bandage’s elasticity brings the hand away from a child’s mouth as the child tires.

Parents make the final assessment of whether the program was successful and should monitor the child during different stages of sleep. It was recommended that parents provide small weekly rewards throughout the program’s six-week duration. A dental office worker also needs to make brief weekly telephone calls to the child to gauge progress. It is essential that the child receive positive reinforcement when not sucking on a finger or thumb. No adverse effects of the bandage method have been reported.

Digit-sucking habits that remain after six to seven months of age become increasingly harder to discontinue. While persistent digit-sucking habits—involving any digit—are more common in boys, thumbsucking is the most common habit for girls. The physical effects of prolonged digit-sucking are well-documented—anterior overbite, increased overjet, development of posterior crossbite, and increased risk of trauma to maxillary incisors—and dependent on the frequency, duration, placement and age of discontinuation of a child’s habit. Studies have also reported that first grade children who still have digit-sucking habits are thought to be less intelligent, less happy, less attractive, and less desirable as friends by their peers. Most experts agree digit-sucking should stop between four years of age and when the maxillary permanent teeth erupt.

Pediatric Dentistry is the bimonthly didactic publication of the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry. Pediatric dentists are primary care providers who also provide comprehensive treatment for infants, children, adolescents, and patients with special health care needs. www.aapd.org.