Parents, pay attention to this information!
You watch your child sleep peacefully at night, except, wait a minute, is their mouth hanging open? Are they snoring? You shrug it off, assuming it’s harmless. But what if I told you that this seemingly small habit could shape your child’s health, development, and even their personality for years to come?
Most parents obsess over their child’s diet, making sure they eat their vegetables and get enough protein. They’re careful about hydration, limiting sugar, and ensuring proper hygiene. But there’s one fundamental health factor that parents rarely pay attention to: breathing.
Dr. Konstantin Buteyko, a pioneer in respiratory and holistic health, spent decades researching how the way we breathe affects our bodies. He found that breathing affects health a thousand times more than diet. Think about it. Humans can survive without food for nearly a month, without water for about a week, but without air? Just a few minutes. Yet, most parents don’t realize that something as simple as mouth breathing can set their child up for a lifetime of health problems.
You may have questions, and understandably so. Why is mouth breathing such a big deal? What’s happening inside your child’s body when they breathe through their mouth? And more importantly, what can you do about it before it’s too late?
Why Mouth Breathing is a Silent Health Disaster for Children
Mouth breathing isn’t just an odd habit or a quirky sleep behavior. It fundamentally alters a child’s development, from how their face forms to how well their brain functions.
Most importantly, mouth breathing is a form of chronic hyperventilation, which leads to a deficiency of carbon dioxide in the lungs. According to Dr. Konstantin Buteyko, CO2 plays a critical role in oxygen delivery, nervous system regulation, immune function, and overall physiological balance. When CO2 levels drop due to excessive mouth breathing, it disrupts nearly every system in the body, contributing to a wide range of health conditions.
This isn’t fearmongering; it’s science. And the sooner parents recognize the signs, the sooner they can prevent long-term damage.
Let’s take a closer look at what happens when a child becomes a habitual mouth breather:
Altered Facial and Dental Development
Dr. Buteyko observed that children who breathe through their mouths tend to develop long, narrow faces, weak chins, and crowded teeth.
Why?
Because nasal breathing naturally promotes proper tongue posture, with the tongue resting on the roof of the mouth, helping to shape the upper jaw and support healthy facial growth.
When a child mouth breathes, the tongue doesn’t stay in its proper position. Instead, it sits low in the mouth, which fails to provide the necessary support for proper jaw and airway development.
Over time, this can lead to:
- Misaligned Teeth: Without the tongue pressing against the roof of the mouth, the upper jaw remains underdeveloped, resulting in crowded and crooked teeth. Many orthodontic issues requiring braces are actually a consequence of poor breathing habits rather than genetics.
- Narrow Airways: A child who mouth breathes is at risk of developing a smaller airway, which increases the likelihood of sleep apnea, snoring, and breathing difficulties later in life.
- A Recessed Chin and Elongated Face Shape: Because mouth breathing alters the way the facial muscles function, children often develop a “long face syndrome,” characterized by a high-arched palate, an overbite, and a weak lower jaw.
A Surprising Connection: The “Braces Epidemic”
Orthodontists worldwide have noticed an alarming increase in children needing braces and jaw expanders. But few connect these issues to mouth breathing.
Dr. John Mew, an orthodontist and the founder of orthotropics, has long advocated that nasal breathing plays a vital role in proper jaw and airway development. According to his clinical observations, children who consistently breathe through their noses tend to develop wider jaws, stronger facial muscles, and healthier airways, whereas mouth breathing may contribute to a narrower facial structure and misaligned teeth.
The takeaway?
Fixing your child’s breathing early may prevent years of orthodontic treatment and save thousands of dollars in dental work.
Weakened Immune System
Imagine your child stepping into a dusty, germ-filled classroom. If they breathe through their nose, their built-in filtration system kicks in:
- Nasal cilia (tiny hair-like structures) trap bacteria, viruses, and allergens before they ever reach the lungs.
- The nose humidifies and warms the air, making it easier for the lungs to process.
- Nitric oxide, a natural antiviral and antibacterial gas produced in the nasal passages, fights off harmful pathogens.
Now, picture the same scenario if your child is breathing through their mouth. Every single pollutant, allergen, and germ enters directly into their lungs with no barrier.
This makes them:
- More susceptible to frequent colds, sinus infections, and respiratory illnesses. Mouth breathers are often the kids who are constantly sick, coughing, or congested.
- More prone to allergies and asthma symptoms. Without proper nasal filtration, irritants trigger chronic inflammation in the respiratory system.
- At higher risk for inflamed tonsils and adenoids. The immune system is overworked, leading to swollen airways that make nasal breathing even harder.
Breaking the Cycle of Congestion
Many parents assume that mouth breathing is a symptom of congestion, but the truth is mouth breathing is what’s CAUSING the congestion. The more a child breathes through their mouth, the drier and more inflamed their airways become.
A vicious cycle begins:
- The child gets a cold → nasal passages become inflamed → they start mouth breathing.
- Mouth breathing dries out the airways → leading to more inflammation and mucus production. Even more importantly: mouth breathing lowers CO2 and as a result, the body increases mucus production to move the level of CO2 in the lungs up.
- The child remains permanently congested, reinforcing the habit of mouth breathing.
How do you break the cycle?
By retraining your child to breathe through their nose, even when congested.
Lower Oxygen Absorption and Energy Levels
Have you ever noticed that your child seems exhausted all the time: yawning constantly, struggling to focus, or getting cranky after just a few hours of activity?
Parents often assume the culprit is poor diet, screen time, or school stress, but breathing may be the real issue.
Mouth breathing disrupts the body’s natural maybe normal balance of oxygen and CO2. When a child breathes through their nose, CO2 levels are properly better regulated, allowing oxygen to detach from the blood and actually reach their cells, muscles, and brain. But with mouth breathing, that balance is thrown off. The result? Oxygen stays trapped in the bloodstream instead of fueling the body, causing chronic fatigue, brain fog, and irritability.
It might seem hard to believe that something as simple as breathing through the mouth could have such an impact on energy levels, but just watch this video. It hilariously captures just how wiped out a child can get when they aren’t breathing optimally.
@therockandrollplayhouse “I’m cranky, I’m tired, I worked hard at school.” 🤣 He deserves to come to a Rock and Roll Playhouse show! 🎥: @judemywildchild #kidsoftiktok #musicforkids
Please embed TikTok video: https://www.tiktok.com/@therockandrollplayhouse/video/7290945446179048746
Now imagine this isn’t just a moment in time; it’s their daily reality.
By helping children transition to nasal breathing, parents can give them a natural energy boost without the need for extra naps or sugar rushes. Better breathing equals better oxygenation, which means more energy to play, learn, and grow.
Sleep Disruptions and Behavioral Issues
Mouth breathing isn’t just an issue during the day; it wreaks absolute havoc on a child’s sleep.
When children breathe through their mouths at night, they often experience:
- Snoring and Sleep Apnea: CO2 deficit and narrowed airways leads to frequent pauses in breathing, forcing the body to wake up repeatedly throughout the night.
- Tossing, Turning, and Night Sweats: As the body struggles for air, sleep becomes fragmented, preventing deep, restful cycles. This is how the body tries to increase its CO2 level, which becomes abnormally low.
- Light, Restless Sleep Instead of True Recovery: Sleep quality plummets, making it difficult for the brain and body to restore energy. The body triwes to avoid sound sleep, which can create more of CO2 loss
The Hidden ADHD Connection
Many children diagnosed with ADHD-like symptoms may actually be suffering from sleep-disordered breathing.
How?
- Poor sleep leads to hyperactivity, emotional outbursts, and attention issues. When children don’t get quality sleep, their ability to regulate emotions and maintain focus diminishes, often resulting in behaviors reminiscent of ADHD.
- Daytime sleepiness impairs learning and memory. A tired brain struggles to process and retain information, making school a daunting challenge for sleep-deprived kids. In addition, a CO2 deficit often creates oxygen starvation in the brain.
- Chronic fatigue makes kids more prone to mood swings and anxiety. Lack of restful sleep can destabilize a child’s mood, leading to increased irritability and anxiety. Nervious systm.
In fact, research shows that children with untreated sleep apnea are often misdiagnosed with ADHD because their symptoms look identical.
One study highlighted a 17-year-old who was initially diagnosed with ADHD due to inattention and fidgeting. However, a sleep study later revealed that obstructive sleep apnea was the real culprit. Once treated with continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) therapy, his symptoms significantly improved. CPAP can control sleep apnea; however, the Buteyko method helps to stop it by removing its cause, determined by Dr. Buteyko, which is excessive breathing, especially through the mouth, and insufficient CO2.
Studies also suggest that up to 25% of children diagnosed with ADHD may actually have sleep apnea. This overlap indicates that many behavioral and learning challenges attributed to ADHD could stem from chronic, fragmented sleep, which comes with over-breathing.
Many parents resort to medication when, in reality, their child needs better breathing habits, not stimulants or symptom suppresing medication.
Mood Swings
If your child seems to have dramatic mood swings, one moment laughing, the next on the verge of a meltdown, poor breathing might be playing a bigger role than you think.
Chronic mouth breathing and hyperventilation lower CO2 levels in the body, which directly impacts the excitability of nerve cells. In simple terms, low CO2 makes the nervous system overly reactive.
This means a child might become unusually irritable, anxious, or emotionally unpredictable. One minute they’re perfectly fine, and the next, they’re overwhelmed by frustration or tears over something minor. This isn’t just random moodiness; it’s a physiological response to breathing dysfunction.
When a child is constantly in a state of mild hyperventilation, their body remains in a stress response, making it harder for them to regulate emotions, handle frustration, or remain calm in challenging situations. Proper nasal breathing helps balance CO2 levels, which in turn stabilizes the nervous system, leading to better emotional control and fewer outbursts.
Many parents assume their child’s emotional ups and downs are just part of growing up, but correcting mouth breathing could be the key to fostering a calmer, more emotionally balanced child.
Enlarged Adenoids and Tonsils
For many parents, the moment they hear “enlarged adenoids” from a doctor, surgery starts to feel inevitable. The pediatrician explains that swollen adenoids block nasal airflow, leading to constant congestion, mouth breathing, restless sleep, and snoring. And before you know it, your child is scheduled for an adenoidectomy, often without any discussion about why the adenoids became enlarged in the first place.
But here’s something few parents are told: the adenoids don’t just randomly swell up like balloons. One of the biggest culprits behind their enlargement is chronic mouth breathing.
Dr. Konstantin Buteyko discovered that when children habitually breathe through their mouths, it dries out and inflames the airways. The immune system, detecting constant irritation, triggers an inflammatory response, causing the adenoids to enlarge as they attempt to fight off perceived threats.
The result? Even more nasal obstruction, which forces the child to breathe through their mouth even more, creating a frustrating cycle:
- A child starts mouth breathing due to congestion.
- The dry, unfiltered air irritates the throat and nasal passages.
- The immune system overreacts, causing swelling of the adenoids and tonsils.
- This swelling further blocks nasal airflow, making mouth breathing even more necessary.
- The cycle continues, leading doctors to recommend surgery as the only solution.
At this point, many parents assume adenoidectomy is the only way forward. But what if, instead of removing tissue, we simply corrected the child’s breathing? To learn how to do it, I recommend reading my book Adenoids Without Surgery.
Tania’s Story: When Surgery Isn’t the Solution
Tania, a mother who sought help from the Buteyko Breathing Center, had been through not one, but two adenoid removal surgeries for her four-year-old son.
Like many children with enlarged adenoids, he was a habitual mouth breather who often drooled, especially at night. The first surgery helped temporarily, but a few months later, his symptoms returned, just as bad as before.
After a second adenoidectomy, Tania was frustrated to see that her son was still breathing through his mouth. When his pediatrician suggested yet another round of surgery, she knew something wasn’t right. “How could his adenoids keep growing back if surgery was supposed to fix it?” she wondered.
That’s when she discovered the Buteyko Method. She began working with Lisa Calice through the Breathing Center and reading Sasha Yakovleva’s book, Adenoids Without Surgery. What she learned was eye-opening: her son’s breathing habits were the real issue, not his adenoids.
With guidance from Lisa, Tania’s son practiced simple Buteyko Breathing exercises, learning to breathe through his nose instead of his mouth. Lisa made the exercises fun and engaging, so instead of resisting, her son actually looked forward to his sessions. In addition to breathing retraining, they also made some dietary changes based on Dr. Buteyko’s recommendations.
The results were nothing short of amazing. Over time, his congestion decreased, his mouth stayed closed more often, and, best of all, he stopped drooling. He rarely had colds or a stuffy nose again, which meant his adenoids were no longer under constant attack.
Tania was relieved. No more surgeries, no more endless congestion, and no more mouth breathing. Just by changing how her son breathed, they had broken the cycle.
Read Tanya’s testimonial here.
I’m Curious About Buteyko Breathing for Children… Tell Me More!
If you’re starting to realize that your child’s mouth breathing could be impacting their health, the next logical question is: What can I do about it?
The Buteyko Method is the only approach that directly addresses the root cause of mouth breathing: chronic hyperventilation and low CO2 levels in the lungs. Unlike conventional and alternative treatments that focus on managing symptoms (like sleep apnea, enlarged adenoids, or tonsillitis), Buteyko Breathing corrects dysfunctional breathing patterns through targeted breathing exercises and lifestyle modifications, restoring proper nasal breathing and preventing long-term health complications.
By practicing specific Buteyko Breathing exercises, children can naturally transition from habitual mouth breathing to nasal breathing 24/7, even during sleep. This adjustment plays a key role in increasing CO2 levels in the lungs, which in turn improves oxygen delivery, unblocks nasal passages, and reduces inflammation without relying on medication or surgery, and helps preventing various diseases.
Dr. Buteyko’s groundbreaking method is explained in detail in my book Adenoids Without Surgery, which provides a step-by-step guide for parents looking to help their children overcome mouth breathing naturally. Additionally, my book Breathe To Heal includes a dedicated section for parents of children with asthma, showing how Buteyko Breathing can reduce symptoms and improve lung function by correcting hyperventilation.
If you’re unsure where to start, I’m here to help. Through private Buteyko Breathing sessions, I’ve worked with countless families to help children normalize their breathing and break free from the cycle of chronic mouth breathing. Every child is unique, and with the right guidance, Dr. Buteyko’s unique approach to breathing and overall health can become a natural and lasting part of their daily life.
If you’re ready to take the next step toward restoring your child’s health at its core, let’s work together. Contact me, and let’s begin the journey to better breathing!
