We need to realize that now almost EVERY child with less than perfect teeth
gets to have braces.  So whether or not your child goes to the Orthodontist
or not probably has very little to do with their oral health.  Gathering
statistics about the number of children that see an orthodontist I see as
fairly meaningless.  What probably SHOULD be studied in the number of
children that have true "problems" with their oral structure and the
relationship to how they were fed as an infant.  Many more of us would have
had braces if we were children now, but a little crowding was not considered
a problem when I was a child.  My dentist said if "the bite" was OK that
braces were just an option.  It depended on how unhappy you were with the way
your teeth looked.   All 3 of my children have gone through the process, and
they were 100% breastfed (for a loooong time)  with no pacifiers or bottles.
 This is a big business we are talking about here.
Jane Bradshaw, with thousands of $$$ invested in my childrens teeth so they
wil look as perfect as possible and fit into society in Lynchburg, VA.