Breastfeeding and Its Effects on Dentocraniofacial Growth and Development of 4 - 5 Years Old Children in Batak Ethnics

Abstract

Objective: Breastfeeding has many positive effects on infants but there is a lack of promotion on it from the health of dental and oral. There is a benefit while sucking since breastfed may stimulate the growing of the jaws up and strengthen orofacial muscles maximally. Materials and Methods: The type of research which was carried out was observational with retrospective cohort study, aimed at having average different of vertical cephalic index, dental arch and palatal depth between who were given breastmilk babies were given breastmilk and no breastmilk in Batak ethnic. Results : The result of the analysis showed that there’s significant association between giving breastmilk during infancy with cephalic height, cephalic length, maxillary canine arch width, maxillary molar arch width, anterior segment arch length and palatal depth (p<0.05) and it was known that there’s no significant association between breastfeeding during infancy with vertical cephalic index, maxillary canine arch depth and posterior segment arch length (p>0.05).Conclusion : Exclusive breastfeeding may stimulate the growth and development in dentocraniofacial and may also influence the size of dental arch as the main factor to avoid malocclusion.