00:00hello welcome welcome to doctorpedia podcast channel your trusted channel for parenting
00:13tips and child health advice i am dr prashanth goda namaskara nanu nimma karnatakada bengalurina
00:21makkala tagnya dr prashanth goda your neonatologist and pediatrician and director of dyu women and
00:29childcare bangalore we are addressing a common concern for many parents that is thumb sucking
00:36in children if your child is still sucking their thumb past infancy should we worry let's find out
00:44i want to share two stories a mother came to me and with a six months old child she kept on telling
00:54me that baby is putting finger in the mouth and i looked at the baby baby was totally comfortable
00:59put not one finger two finger in the mouth and then it was biting the finger and baby was enjoying
01:06saliva was drooling and this is what we expect at six months of age there is another story fire four
01:14year old child brought to the opd saying that my kid is not speaking i carefully looked at the child the
01:21child had put thumb into the mouth i went close to the child took a chocolate and removed the thumb and
01:30i asked do you want chocolate the child said yes so this two stories why i shared i'll tell you is thumb
01:38sucking normal there is a psychosexual theory which has been you know done by legendary sigmoid freud
01:47basically he analyzed the human behavior and he divided psychosexual into four stages oral phase anal phase phallic
02:00phase latent phase and the the public or the active phase oral phase is basically where the child will
02:10have more pleasure and more you know they are more active with mouth so that is between zero to one
02:18year so this is the time where the child puts anything and everything into the mouth and based on how they
02:26put it from you know transferring of object from one hand to another hand and then putting in the mouth
02:31the age appropriate milestones are also just based on that and it is absolutely normal you don't have to
02:37worry about that between one to three years where the anal phase where the child starts having the
02:45bowel control and four year onwards they go into phallic phase where they start concentrating on the genitals
02:54and then latent phase where the libido that is six years onwards where they have that libido and other
03:01maturity and after twelve years it is the public active life they will have more develop more interest on
03:07in on sexual things so these are the stages so why i i was addressing about this stage is
03:15thumb sucking is a natural reflex as i said in the babies it's a way of them self-soothe and feel secure
03:22and especially in the stressful situation or during the sleep in most cases it's completely normal
03:27for infant and toddler however if thumb sucking continues beyond four to five years of age it might raise some concern
03:35prolonged thumbs thumb sucking can affect the alignment of the tooth development of the mouth and lead to speech
03:42problem as i told a small story about that such as difficulty in pronouncing certain sounds increase the risk of skin irritation
03:51and infections around the thumb so what when should we act as a parent frequency and intensity is your child
04:00sucking their thumb often or with great force impact on daily activities does it interfere with eating
04:05speaking or playing emerging dental issues are their teeth starting to protrude or mall align if you notice any of
04:14these signs it's time to take action parents remember that thumb sucking is a natural phase and most children outgrow it on their own
04:21with patience gentle encouragement and with diversion tactics you can help your child move past this habit
04:29this is dr prashant gauda on drpedia podcast channel signing off thank you for tuning in and as always happy parenting
04:51thanks
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