Can Sucking The Thumb Benefit A Child’s Health?
Sucking your thumb is a way a child should get rid of as they grow up to avoid open bites and palate defects. However, new research shows that sucking the thumb, which has been condemned as a bad habit, also has surprising benefits.
Namely, sucking your thumb and chewing your nails may protect children from allergies as they grow older. A team of Canadian-Swedish researchers who conducted the study suggest that sucking the thumb and chewing the nails exposes the child to more microbes than normal, which modifies the child’s immune system and reduces his or her risk of developing allergies.
The study was conducted by researchers at the University of Otago and its results were published in the U.S. journal Pediatrics .
The research results support the hygiene hypothesis
The research team’s findings are based on the health data of more than a thousand people. Parents of children in the study reported sucking their children’s thumb and chewing their nails when they were 5, 7, 9, and 11 years old.
Participants’ allergies were examined by prick skin tests when they were 13 and 32 years old. These skin prick tests examine a rapid allergy, and the subject’s skin usually develops symptoms within a few minutes if he or she is sensitized to a particular allergen. The Prick test provides indications of, for example, animal and pollen allergies.
At age 13, only 38% of individuals who had sucked their thumbs or chewed their nails as a child responded to at least one allergen. For individuals who did not have either of these habits, the corresponding figure was 49%.
The result was even clearer for those subjects who had both sucked their thumbs and chewed their nails regularly when they were babies. Only 31 percent of these individuals showed a skin test for signs of allergy.
The result became even clearer at the age of 32 years, especially when the researchers also considered other factors influencing allergies, such as gender, family allergy history, childhood pets, smoking habits, and childhood breastfeeding.
Based on these results, there is no need to worry about sucking a child’s thumb or chewing their nails – at least from a hygiene standpoint. According to the researchers, the results support the so-called hygiene hypothesis that childhood infections and microbial exposure reduce allergies.
Get rid of bad childhood habits
While sucking your thumb or chewing your nails may prevent you from developing allergies, your child should try to get rid of these habits as they can have nasty consequences.
Although thumb sucking is a common use in a baby, it is a good idea to give up the habit by the age of four, as the skeleton of the palate is soft and malleable, and sucking the thumb can cause palate defects. At worst, the result can be facial deformities or phonetic problems as the child learns to speak.
Sucking your thumb can cause dental problems, in addition to which it can cause problems in the thumb itself, for example in the form of finger inflammation.
A child who has reached the age of three is already moving independently, which means that the child gets a variety of objects and substances in their hands. If the child continues to suck his thumb, the possibility of poisoning and inflammation is always present.
It is also not good for a child to chew their nails. In addition to increasing the risk of inflammation as a child ages, chewing nails can cause warts and dental problems, for example. Also, performing daily activities may be more difficult if the child has chewed their nails very short.
