According to the recent press, experts have revealed that thumb sucking and nail biting in young children may mean that they are less likely to develop allergies later in childhood, according to a new study that spanned three decades.
It’s a dilemma that I once faced and is faced by millions of parents worldwide – how do you stop your child sucking their thumb?
But researchers have found that the bad habit of thumb sucking and nail biting may bring unexpected health benefits. Although experts say that the results do not suggest that kids should take up these bad habits, they do suggest that the habits may help protect against allergies into adulthood.
Of course we mustn’t forget that even thought there is a potential health benefit they tend to be more susceptible to picking up tummy bugs and or course we shouldn’t forget what the long term effects of prolonged thumb sucking can cause.
Problems with thumb sucking can be:
- Teeth being pushed outward and upward
- The lower front teeth can move inward
- The upper and lower front teeth may not meet and your child may have a big gap
- Speech problems
- Problems chewing
- Chapped skin
Thumb and finger sucking habit?
Help your child prevent the problems that prolonged and aggressive thumb and finger sucking can cause Buy NowSo it’s ok to suck your thumb or bite your nails – or is it? So whilst it seems there might be some positives, its not guaranteed that they wont suffer from an allergy. Common allergies such as asthma and hay fever are not prevented. So our advice is to still try and help them to stop thumb sucking. If you want to help them with a Thumbsie® fabric thumb guard then we have had a lot of success.
You can read more on the problems with thumb sucking or tips on how to stop thumb sucking.
In early July 2016 there were so many new reports about thumb sucking and nail biting, but here are a few links to some of the websites.
Positive sides to bad habits by sott.net
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