“The Very Stuffy Nose: I’ll keep my mouth closed and breathe through my nose”
Author Kelley Richardson is a mom and dedicated oral health researcher. She skillfully (and quite entertainingly) conveys this most basic message – breathe through the nose not the mouth. She also discusses how to do it and the downside of breathing through your mouth – in her book The Very Stuffy Nose: I’ll keep my mouth closed and breathe through my nose. With large-format, fully illustrated pages, she shares what her son Finn, who was a mouth breather, learned to become a healthier, happier nose breather. Geared toward kids from about age 8, it can be enjoyed by anyone interested in learning how to break the mouth breathing habit.
Unfortunately, breathing issues in kids – including mouth-breathing – are an under-recognized EPIDEMIC – and are setting kids up for a lifetime of chronic diseases. These problems can include tooth decay, gum disease, crooked or fractured teeth, impacted teeth, changes in facial bone structure, sleep related breathing disorders, including OSA – obstructive sleep apnea) and…
More than half the people diagnosed with ADHD are mouth breathers
In a recent study mouth breathing during the first three years was associated with autism.
Detected and treated early, many of these consequences can be reduced or reversed.
That’s why the need for this book is CRITICAL.
Share this book with the people who need to know about the importance of keeping the mouth closed to breathe.
Richardson’s simplicity of approach and straightforward text is nothing short of genius in presenting this message in a children’s book. I think undeniably that there’s no better format in which to transmit basic health facts that are often overlooked by health consumers AND health professionals.
PARENTS
Please realize that this nose-breathing message is very slow to gain traction in mainstream health-care thinking. Significantly, this message is still missing from medical and dental school curriculums. If your child is a mouth breather, this book can be especially useful to open a discussion with your child’s dentist and pediatrician.
DENTISTS
Are you focused on your patients’ breathing as well as their teeth? If so, please read this book and put it in your waiting room. When you see a new patient – especially a child – do you ask how they (and their parents) are breathing and sleeping? This book is why you should specifically ask that question.
As a dentist myself – and lifelong oral-systemic-airway health researcher – I’ve finally learned this basic, surprisingly simple yet critical message. It’s a message that I DIDN’T learn in dental school! Mouth breathing is NEVER normal, no matter what ANYONE – even your health-care professional – tells you.
PHYSICIANS
Should be taught– but usually aren’t – in medical school or residency – that mouth breathing is NEVER normal. The weight of clinical data is argues – at times shouting – that children do NOT ‘grow out of it’.
Whether you agree with the previous sentence or not…I encourage all PEDIATRICIANS to read this book. Keep an open mind. Be consciously aware that childhood might just be the best time to prevent the epidemics of chronic diseases your physician colleagues are seeing in adults. Conditions that may well have started with poor breathing and sleep when they were children. The Very Stuffy Nose is a great place to start this prevention – please read it!
You can purchase a copy on Amazon HERE.