Breastfeeding and language development.
We hear a lot about the many benefits of breastfeeding. We know that breast milk is the ideal food for the baby, it provides all the nutrients it needs for healthy development, it contains antibodies that help protect the infant from multiple diseases, it favors the bonding mother child, which reduces the risk of sudden infant death and many other benefits. But there is another aspect that is little known and that is the relationship between breastfeeding and speech development in the child. Breastfeeding could be said to be the foundation of speech.
If we pay attention we will see that when pronouncing the different sounds of our tongue there is a direct participation of a group of orofacial organs such as the jaws, the hard palate, the soft palate, the lips and the tongue. These are the same organs that intervene in such important actions as suction and swallowing. The coordination of sucking and swallowing is necessary for the proper functioning of lactation and the oral anatomy of the baby is designed for it. The position of the baby's organs is different from that of older children. Almost the entire mouth of the newborn is occupied by the tongue, but thanks to the sucking process the tongue contracts repeatedly and so little by little, develops the proper position so that later the baby can articulate the sounds of speech and also reach the facial skull balance. Likewise, in the suction process the orbicular muscles of the lips are exercised, which are in charge of immobilizing the breast before compressing it to express milk. These muscles are the ones that later intervene in the labial closing, whistling, blowing, throwing kisses, and so on. The jaws are also exercised, which are in charge of compressing the breast to help the milk flow. The baby, born with the jaw retracted from the upper jaw, is able to reach the proper position of his jaws around 8 months thanks to the repeated movement of these muscles.
In the same way, breastfeeding helps the baby to get used to using a nasal breath and thus avoid the appearance of the oral respirator syndrome, which produces physiological alterations that can progressively affect his physical and emotional development, as the child is unable to breathe through the nose.
After all these advances, the baby will be correctly prepared for the first teeth, which will help the optimal development of chewing. Chewing also uses the jaw, the lips, the tongue and it is from the coarse movements made in the act of chewing that the fine movements necessary for speech are developed.
Breastfeeding during the first months of life does not exercise all of this muscle in an adequate way because the teats have a very different design to the nipple of the mother and the effort made by the baby to express milk is much less. Early artificial lactation makes the coordination of sucking and swallowing reflexes often inadequate, and the work of the muscles of the mouth is more passive, presenting a greater incidence of negative effects on craniofacial maturation and development. This increases the risk factor for the appearance of harmful habits and misalignment of the teeth (malocclusions) as well as late appearance of articulated sounds and first words.
However, if you are unable to breastfeed your baby, you must be clear that other aspects also play a role in the correct development of speech: biological, affective and environmental factors that also play a super important role in the overall development of your child. If your baby could not be breastfed there are exercises that you can implement . We will see this in a future article.
Lic .Rocío Vargas
Speech Therapist
