Influence of the type of breastfeeding as a risk or protective factor for the onset of malocclusions: a systematic review

Aim: The correlation between malocclusions in deciduous dentition and type of breastfeeding has been described by many authors in numerous articles. The aim of this article is to investigate the literature about this important topic. Materials: The research was conducted by querying the following databases: PubMed, EBMR, Cochrane Library, Web of Sciences, Medline, Web of Sciences, Ovid and Embase. The key words were: "infant" OR "baby", AND "breastfeeding" AND "malocclusion". As with similar literature review papers, the PRISMA-P (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews Protocols) was used. The examined articles were of the following types: randomised controlled trials (RCTs), case-control studies and cohort studies. For the qualitative analysis of the selected studies, it was employed the NOS scale (Newcastle-Ottawa Quality Assessment Scale). Conclusion: Two hundred and fifty articles were selected. After filtering out the articles deemed irrelevant or with obvious bias, only 16 articles were left. From our results, it can be concluded that breastfeeding seems to play a decisive role in preventing the onset of posterior cross-bites and Class II malocclusions, and that this protective effect appears to be time-dependent.