Behavior of deforming oral habits in children from 5 to 12 years of age in a primary school

Introduction: oral habits are an undoubted primary or secondary cause of malocclusions or dentomaxillofacial deformations. Objective: to determine the behavior of deforming oral habits in children from 5 to 12 years of age, from the “Isidro de Armas” primary school in the Pinar del Río municipality. Methods: an observational, descriptive, cross-sectional research was carried out. The universe was 85 children, the sample determined from a non-random sampling, stratified by age, was made up of 65 children from the “Isidro de Armas” primary school in Pinar del Río, in the period september-november 2022. The results obtained were recorded in a database of the STATISTIC statistical system. From the inferential statistical point of view, the Chi square test in its contingency table variant and the hypothesis test were used to compare proportions corresponding to mutually exclusive categories. Results: the age group 9-10 years old predominated with 21 children (32, 3 %) and the female sex 39 children (60 %). There were no highly significant differences in relation to age groups, but there were differences in relation to sex. Finger sucking predominated in 20 children for 60, 6 %, followed by atypical swallowing in 18 (54, 5 %), mouth breathing in 14 (42, 4 %) and bottle sucking in 10 children. A significant predominance of children who have malocclusions due to practicing one or more deforming oral habits (55, 4 %) was found compared to the percentage of those who have malocclusions despite not having deforming oral habits (13 %). Conclusions: prevention plays a fundamental role in avoiding malocclusions, having a prophylactic objective.