Back-to-school shopping can be a pretty good reminder of just how much kids can change in a year. Last fall’s shoes don’t fit. Practice clothes need replacing. The cleats that made it through last football season may not have another left in them.
But what about the mouthguard? With football season now here, it’s one piece of protective gear that deserves a close look before your young athlete heads back onto the field.
Mouthguards take a good amount of punishment, after all. Players clench down on them. They get chewed. They absorb forces during contact. Heat and improper storage can affect the material they’re made of. By the end of the season, a mouthguard can show a lot of wear.
In fact, one study of high school football players found that their mouthguards lost 16% to 23% of their thickness in just the first six weeks of a competitive season.
This has real consequences for how a mouthguard performs. “As the material content of mouthguards is reduced,” the authors of that study noted, “the ability of these protective devices to absorb impact energy decreases.” The more force that’s transmitted to the teeth, the greater the risk of injury.
Some signs of wear may be obvious, such as the mouthguard looking gnawed on. Other changes can be harder to spot. The device may look fine overall. It may even feel completely comfortable to the athlete. And that’s where some new research gets especially interesting.
Recently published in Dental Traumatology, the study followed athletes who wore custom-made mouthguards during both practices and competition. Researchers checked the fit when the guards were new, then again at six months and 12 months.
They measured the change by placing a silicone material between each player’s mouthguard and teeth. The more material needed to fill that space, the worse the fit. By 12 months, the amount of material needed had increased by 48% compared with when the guards were new.
Yet the athletes themselves didn’t report much difference in how their mouthguards felt. The research team asked not just about fit and retention, but also things like breathing, speech, and jaw fatigue. Across the whole study, the only notable difference they reported was in how their device looked.
“These findings,” the researchers concluded,
suggest that subjective perception alone may not accurately reflect changes in mouthguard fit, highlighting the importance of objective fit assessment during routine sports dental care.
For parents, the takeaway is pretty simple: If your child already has a mouthguard, bring it along to their next dental visit so we can check its fit and condition rather than relying on how it looks or how your athlete says it feels.
That doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be told to replace it. Depending on its condition, an existing custom guard may just need an adjustment. If it’s become significantly worn, thin, torn, distorted, or loose, though, a new one may be the better choice.
With younger athletes, there’s another factor in play: Their mouths are still growing and changing. Baby teeth are lost. Permanent teeth erupt. The position of the teeth can change along the way. So even if the mouthguard itself hasn’t taken much of a beating, the mouth it was made for may no longer be quite the same mouth.
Of course, not every athlete wears a custom mouthguard, and custom guards are specifically what the new study looked at. Stock guards are inexpensive and ready to wear, while boil-and-bite guards can be molded at home for a closer fit. Custom guards are made from an impression or digital scan of the athlete’s mouth, which allows for a much more precise fit and retention.
That doesn’t make a boil-and-bite a bad choice, particularly when cost is a consideration. The important thing is that your child has a mouthguard that fits securely, has enough material to provide protection, and is comfortable enough that they’ll actually keep it in their mouth.
And this isn’t something for only football families to think about. Mouthguards can provide important protection in sports such as soccer, basketball, and lacrosse, too — anywhere a collision, fall, ball, or elbow can send force toward the mouth.
At Pride Dental, we’re always happy to check a mouthguard as part of your young athlete’s regular care — whether it needs an adjustment, it’s time for a replacement, or it’s perfectly fine for another season.
