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The Center for Airway and Facial Development! Our name was created based upon the mission of our practice- to utilize early intervention strategies to optimize your child’s airway through guiding the growth of their craniofacial complex.
Dr. Joanna Green is a graduate of the University of Maryland School of Dentistry. She then completed a hospital based general practice residency program at Christiana Care in Wilmington, Delaware. After spending 4 years practicing in a traditional family dental practice setting, she was frustrated at not having answers to her patient and their parents’ questions, especially when it came to how the mouth is related to whole body health.
Since then, she has dedicated over 7 years of advanced training to grow her knowledge of the cranio-facial respiratory complex. Specifically on how dentists can intercept poor growth patterns in children to help them grow into healthier versions of themselves! Dr. Green believes in a collaborative approach and works hand in hand with orthodontic specialists when indicated.
Dr. Christina Bowman is a dedicated pediatric dentist with a deep passion for early intervention and holistic care. After completing her pediatric dental residency at Temple University Hospital, Dr. Bowman’s journey grew more personal as a mother navigating her own children’s health challenges. This inspired her commitment to understanding the connections between structure, function, and overall development, bringing a comprehensive approach to every child she treats. In 2024, she joined our AFD family, where her compassion and expertise shine as she cares for children of all ages with the same warmth and dedication she has for her own.
Our team at AFD puts an emphasis on total body health, where the teeth and mouth tell the story of how we have been breathing and functioning during our peak growth years.
At AFD we address the nose, soft tissue dysfunction, tongue and lip restrictions, utilize Myofunctional therapy (retraining of the tongue, lips and swallow patterns), use upper and lower expanders, functional growth guidance appliances, photobiomodulation light therapy, and utilize non-retractive clear aligner and bracket and braces techniques.
Our doctors do a multi-part, comprehensive exam on all of our patients. This includes photography, 3D cone beam scan with full airway view, interpretation, diagnosis, and discussion. We want to ensure all of your questions are answered and that you leave with a customized treatment plan for your child. Typically, a pediatric consultation is about 1.5 hours in length, with approximately 45 minutes of one on one doctor time.
We believe that children should be treated as soon as a problem is identified. Poor growth without intervention leads to more complex and longer treatment times in the future. Also, treating during a child’s growth period often leads to greater changes in skeletal structure, nasal airway, and can impact the health of a child from a total health perspective. In addition to creating more room for the adult teeth and tongue space, the secondary health benefits of expansion include decreasing the size of tonsils and adenoids, opening up the nasal airway, and improving such problems like nighttime bedwetting and snoring.
A child is not too young to have a growth and development problem! Dr. Green and Dr. Bowman take time to learn about your child’s individual needs to determine the appropriate age to treat. Children don’t outgrow problems, instead they grow into and around them. Growth problems very rarely come alone, rather they are a by-product of poor breathing and sleep, and such needs to be treated as soon as possible for brain development.
There are many variables that can affect the healing of a tongue tie procedure. Most importantly, it is critical to understand that at any age, with or without sutures, a new frenum will reform after a procedure. The success of the procedure is only as good as the function that surrounds it, the release is performed in order for a baby to function better, however, function can be impacted by many factors such as body and tongue tone, feeding methods, rehabilitative therapy post release, scar tissue formation and home care.
Intervention should not be thought of as a way to prevent braces, but rather as a way to decrease complexity and length of braces. The earlier we treat, especially when a child still has their baby teeth (primary dentition), we can create more space in the jaw bones for the adult teeth to erupt with the healthiest amount of bone and gum tissue surrounding the teeth. When teeth erupt into an ideal position, the child will have a foundation that is ideal for long term stability.
