Make Your Smile Even Better

Some kids can't wait to get braces. Others are a little worried about what it will be like or how they will look. It can help to learn more about braces, which straighten your teeth and make your smile even better looking.

Tooth Talk

Lots of kids don't have perfect teeth, so don't worry if yours aren't straight. Take a look at most of your classmates. Many of them probably don't have straight teeth either. Sometimes teeth just don't grow in evenly.

Your teeth might be crooked, or your upper and lower jaws might not be the same size. If your upper jaw is bigger than your lower jaw, that's called an overbite. If your lower jaw is bigger than your upper jaw, you have an underbite.

Either way it's called malocclusion (say: mal-uh-kloo-zhun), a word that comes from Latin and means "bad bite." Malocclusion is just a word that dentists use to describe the shape of your mouth.

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