Fatores associados à incidência de maloclusão na dentição decídua em crianças de uma coorte hospitalar pública do nordeste brasileiro Factors associated with the incidence of malocclusion in the deciduous dentition of children in a public hospital cohort from Northeast Brazil

Abstract Objectives: to estimate the incidence of malocclu-sion in deciduous dentition and the factors associatedwith it in early infancy.Methods: a longitudinal study was carried outwith children born in the city of Feira de Santana,Bahia, who were accompanied for 36 months.Incidence rates for malocclusion and incidencedensity ratios (IDR), with corresponding 95% confi-dence intervals, were obtained to assess the associa-tion between malocclusion and associated factors.Poisson regression models were adjusted to controlfor confounders.Results: it was found that 34.4% of the childrenhad mild malocclusion and 23.3% moderate orserious malocclusion, giving a total of 57.8% withsome degree of malocclusion at three years of age.The overall incidence rate for malocclusion was 27.2cases per 100 children per year. Children who used apacifier or sucked their thumb had a higher risk ofmalocclusion than those who did not develop suchsucking habits (IDR=1.99; CI95%= 1.26 – 3.26).Children who were not exclusively or predominantlybreastfed for a period of four months had a 1.5-foldgreater risk of malocculsion (CI95%= 0.99 – 2.25)compared to children who were exclusively orpredominantly breastfed during this period.Conclusions: health workers are alerted to theneed to encourage maternal breastfeeding andmeasures to prevent malocclusion in early infancy.