Do your jaw problems make you reconsider wanting children?

[Optimistic]

This is especially for those with more serious cranial deformities, but, does it ever happen? Do you ever say to yourself "The chances of passing this on are too great"? I have a weak mandible, and while that could be fixed relatively easily I still find myself seriously questioning this. Maybe I'm setting my standards too high? I think I need to get past the idea that when I have kids they need to be perfectly good-looking and smart.

Please share your thoughts.

[overbiter]

I think about this a lot. I would hate to bring someone into the world who has the same problems as me. I think we probably share a lot of the same ideas, are you from the UK?

[Optimistic]

No, I'm not. How bad are your problems? And does anyone know the chances of passing this stuff on? I'm the only one in my family with this and it's made me question whether or not this could have something to do with my messed up hormones.

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Edit: This is really complicated. Is a bad jaw really a big enough reason not to have kids? And knowing we have these issues we could be on the look out for signs early on. Therefore even if they did have these problems they could be completely fixed and nobody would know any different. Which really makes this a kind of genetic purist thing, about whether or not we want the genes passed on.

[overbiter]

I think these problems could only be solved with surgery mate. I have thought that maybe people like us could get surgery done on kids who were 12 or 13. That way it won't mess up their whole lives. Paul Coceancig has the right idea about doing distraction on kids before they've stopped growing. If only I had had this, everything could have been so so different. Where are you from btw?

[Optimistic]

Exactly, distraction looks like the definitive solution for children suffering these problems. Knowing what I know now it makes me so angry to think about how all this could've been solved if only my dentist and the people around me knew what they were talking about. Instead my parents wasted over 15k on braces that were ultimately useless.

Where I'm from is complicated, I haven't lived in one place for quite a while, and my parents are from different countries in Europe. Right now I'm living in Germany though.

[earl25]

This is especially for those with more serious cranial deformities, but, does it ever happen? Do you ever say to yourself "The chances of passing this on are too great"? I have a weak mandible, and while that could be fixed relatively easily I still find myself seriously questioning this. Maybe I'm setting my standards too high? I think I need to get past the idea that when I have kids they need to be perfectly good-looking and smart.

Please share your thoughts.

As an ugly man who has been tormented about his look all his life I think about this a lot.  I have mixed feelings. On one hand I feel knowing this I can be like Switzerland in ww2 and prepare for battle before it starts. But then what if I don't have the money etc.. . But if you do go down that route of kids you should def try to do whatever you can to "knock the comet" out of orbit before it enters the atmosphere. that means no pacifier after 1 year, going to an ortho who might be able to do some expansion with braces etc.

[Mcpizza]

This has been on my mind a lot lately, I'm only 16 yet the thought of having my kids go through the same thing as I am freaks me out! My mum had an underbite and now I do (mine is worse), apparently it was passed on from my mother's dad side (he has passed away and we don't know any family to find out everything). I locked myself in my room for 20 minutes crying after watching a video of myself and realising how I look to others and will probably end up not leaving my house for a week because of it.
 I still have ages to think about it but honestly I might just end up adopting.

[Kristen]

Mcpizza. ..... That is sad to hear that you feel that way about yourself.   Most people don't like to see themselves on video whether they have jaw issues or not.   
Have you looked into having jaw surgery yet?   For people with underbites it seems to make a huge difference in their self confidence and ability to chew food after surgery.  Also breathing always improves too.

[Tiny]

No

My Mother has perfect teeth, jaws, nose.    I am the spit of my Father (except the nose) - I literally got *nothing* from my Mom's face at all.  But my Father's jaw is not as recessed as mine.  So there's really no way to know if your kid would get your teeth/jaws or not

If my kid did get my jaw, I would know what to do....they wouldn't get bad orthodontics and I would let them get DO or jaw surgery at 16 or so.  All of us are in a much better position to deal with kids with jaw issues than a class1 parent would be. 

I'm hoping I have girls as my face looks a lot better as a female face

I'm a lot more worried about passing on my midget height... I'm 5'1".   I basically will only procreate with someone over 6" because if I have a  guy that gets my face and my height he's a bit screwed.  Although I'm not that enthusiastic about kids and am terrible at relationships so I might just end up with (more) dogs instead. 

[screwsandplates]

Nope. I was talking about this with a friend the other day. We figure it'll let our kids develop personalities ;P

[x]

Uh no. This is normal biological variation, not some life-defining deformity. I can live a happy life if I never get this fixed

[needadvancement]

I do not believe it is genetic. My parents have healthy jaws/bites. My oldest brother and me have almost the same jaw and chin shape, as well as teeth shape. But his teeth grew in perfectly straight and he has barely ever had problems with them, and his arches are nicely wide. Same for my sister though she takes up after mother.

I on the other hand completely wrecked my baby teeth growing up because of the amount of sugar and junkfood I consumed, some of them pretty much rotted off. Then when my permanent teeth grew in I didn't improve my habbits so I ended up with very narrow arches full of crowding and a recessed mandible and orbital rims. My other brother also had these bad habbits and his problems were the same plus extraction orthodontics with awful headgear recessed his whole maxilla.

If I have kids, I do not worry about them developing these problems because I'd make sure their diets were healthy.

[Lazlo]

no this is a stupid topic. if you're aware of the possibility, any good orthodontist can alter the jaw growth and widen the arches both lower and upper at a young age (i.e. before like 10). Now you know, knowing is the whole battle.

[needadvancement]

Yeah, it's not like inheriting a disease or some incurable disorder.

[PloskoPlus]

Yeah, it's not like inheriting a disease or some incurable disorder.

4tg generation undebite here.  It must have beeen the pacifier!