[Breast-feeding, bottle-feeding, sucking habits and malocclusion in Brazilian preschool children].
OBJECTIVE
This study was aimed at verifying the prevalence of nutritive (breast-feeding and bottle-feeding) and non-nutritive sucking habits and the presence of malocclusion in Brazilian preschool children.


METHODS
The study was a cross-sectional oral health survey of 342 children (196 boys and 146 girls) between the ages of 3 and 5 in Campina Grande, Brazil. The data was collected by interviews with the children's mothers or minders and by clinical examinations carried out by a calibrated examiner (kappa = 0,86). Descriptive statistics using the EPI-INFO Program (version 3.3) and Chi-square test at 0.05 probability level were produced.


RESULTS
Sucking habit prevalence was very high in all groups, ranging from 70 % to 77,4 %. Malocclusion was present in 87 %, dummy use in 84,8 % and finger-sucking in 7,2 %. About 84,2 % of the children had a history of bottle-feeding and 79,9 % showed some evidence of malocclusion at the time of dental examination. There were significant differences for the following variables: sucking habits and malocclusion; breast-feeding time and sucking habits; breast-feeding time and malocclusion; type of feeding and sucking habits; and type of feeding and malocclusion.


CONCLUSIONS
Dummy-sucking incidence was higher than that of finger-sucking in Brazilian children. Sucking habit incidence was higher in bottle-fed children than in breast-fed children. The relationship between incidence of habits and malocclusion was statistically significant.
Leite-Cavalcanti
Alessandro
A
Universidade Estadual da Paraíba, Paraíba, Brasil. dralessandro@ibest.com.br
Medeiros-Bezerra
Priscila K
PK
Moura
Cristiano
C
D001903:Bottle Feeding / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D001938:Brazil / Q000453:epidemiology; D001942:Breast Feeding / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008310:Malocclusion / Q000453:epidemiology*; D013391:Sucking Behavior