Abstract
Now that life expectancy is said to be 100 years, how to extend healthy life expectancy and improve quality of life （QOL） is an important issue. Needless to say, the acquisition of healthy oral functions plays a part in this, because these functions include breathing for us to live healthily, and chewing power and swallowing power to maintain the quality of eating habits. This is closely related to articulation and sensory integration in conversation, which is one means of communication. Many of the oral function-related problems that become conspicuous from early childhood, such as mouth breathing, sleep-related breathing disorders （SRBD）, abnormal swallowing habits, malocclusion, and dysphonia, can be traced back to sucking movements in infancy. It is thought that this occurs because infantile-type swallowing cannot transition to adult-type swallowing and persists. This is because children learn adult-style swallowing, predation with the lips, bolus formation with the tongue, and chewing with the teeth during the period of baby food and infant food. However, inappropriate introduction of baby food and infant food is thought to impede learning of these oral functions and adversely affect development. Therefore, dentists need to intervene more actively so that this important learning period is not just a time for eating.
Furthermore, when promoting baby food, we must not forget to comprehensively examine not only the development of the oral functions, but also the physical and mental development of the child and the developmental state of sensory integration. It is thus important for people in all professions related to children to have the same awareness and be actively involved.
Accordingly, this paper discusses the importance of baby food and infant food for oral function development and how to deal with it.
