The Treatments
There are numerous approaches to treat chronic (habitual) thumb sucking. They can be bundled into three categories:
Behavioral, Aversive,and Mechanical –
Usually, first attempts made by parents to stop thumb sucking belong to the first category - behavioral. There is professional help available from speech therapists and child psychologists to explore this approach. It is our understanding that this approach fails because children often put thumb in the mouth unconsciously (especially at night), when child's mental control over his/her behavior is not at work
Aversive approaches can be divided into two categories: home remedies (such as bad tasting products and plasters, which usually don't work) and fixed appliance therapy, which includes intraoral devices (cribs or rakes), offered by dentists. These devices are fitted in child's mouth and glued to child's molars for the period from six to twelve months. A clinical evaluation recommends that intraoral devices should be used as a last resort: -"ThumbGuard™ provides a low cost option before this therapy needs to be tried".[1]
The mechanical approach category consists of devices, which are designed to prevent or interrupt thumb sucking. Examples include a sock over the hand or sticking plasters applied to the thumb.
The latest and most successful version of the mechanical approach is ThumbGuard™ - safe and efficient, listed by the FDA as a medical device. Made out of medical grade plastic material, ThumbGuard™ is soft and clear. It does not restrict child's ability to play and it doesn't cause any major discomfort. It interrupts the process of sucking by breaking the vacuum created by sucking, thus removing the child's pleasure without creating any negative feelings, which can be interpreted by a child as a punishment. Treatment with ThumbGuard™ usually lasts four weeks and has very high success rate.
Please go to the section "Our products ", where details of the treatment are discussed.
If a child sucks his/her fingers, we can help with our FingerGuard™ - a device designed similarly to ThumbGuard™.
