“Good to Grow’s mission is to help children thrive earlier in life by identifying and addressing dental issues such as narrow palates, crowded teeth, small mouths, and restricted oral tissues (lip and tongue ties) that are also risk factors for sleep and breathing issues. Why wait for problems to get worse and more complicated over time if we can help set children up for a healthier life now and in the future? — Founder Dr. Lauren Ballinger
There’s more to dentistry than creating straight teeth and a beautiful smile.
Like the Copernican Revolution that altered everything we knew about the cosmos, Dr. Lauren Ballinger’s revolution as a pediatric dentist had two phases. The first was her personal discovery of the root causes of her son and daughter’s health struggles, and the second was her professional decision to shift her paradigm and practice from focusing on teeth to addressing those root causes. In the realm of pediatric dentistry, it was no less a seismic shift than the shift from earth-centric to heliocentric.
Dr. Ballinger now treats patients and supports families through her own practice, Good to Grow, New England’s only pediatric dentistry fully dedicated to airway, early ortho, and frenectomy, which (in her words) “connects the dots between oral health and systemic health to treat the root causes of preventable ailments, especially related to breathing, sleeping, and eating.”
As the pre-eminent visionary in children’s airway health and early orthodontics, she also puts the Berkshires on the map. This past July, she was asked to present and train at the American Dental Association’s Children’s Airway Event in Chicago, educating dentists worldwide. “To be an academic trainer for the ADA is an absolute honor,” she says, adding, “To me, that means I’m in the right place and was put here for a reason.”
A family tradition and a daring diversion
Dr. Lauren Ballinger always knew she wanted to practice dentistry and work with children. The other details of her life-changing airway pediatric dentistry practice came about in response to caring for her own children and hearing a pivotal presentation at a dental conference.
Her grandfather was an oral surgeon, her father and uncle are pediatric dentists, and her husband and father-in-law are dentists. After graduating from dental school, she joined her husband (Dr. Matthew Ballinger) in Germany, where he was a dental officer in the U.S. Army. There, she worked as a dental contractor with the U.S. Department of Defense. The couple returned to the States in 2004 so she could pursue her true calling, starting her residency program in pediatric dentistry at the University of Maryland Dental School—the first school in the world to offer a science-based curriculum in dentistry and a leader in oral health education ever since.
In 2009, they moved to the Berkshires (where she grew up) to raise their children. Dr. Ballinger joined her family’s pediatric dental practice, which offered early growth and development orthodontics. Their business was undeniably successful, but like most traditional practices, treatment was symptom-based and teeth-focused rather than focused on oral-systemic preventive care and root causes.
“The sad reality today is that most healthcare models are driven by for-profit insurance companies and the pharmaceutical industry,” she explains. “Strangely, insurance companies would rather pay for more expensive pills and procedures that are (at best) band-aids addressing the symptoms of diseases. There are no billing or reimbursement codes for the ‘prevention’ of diseases.”
A jaw-dropping epiphany
Dr. Ballinger’s search for a new approach came as a parent, not a professional. Her son, born during her pediatric residency, had a tongue tie (ankyloglossia). “I couldn’t nurse for the first 72 hours, and he ended up back in NICU [neonatal intensive care unit] as a result,” she shares. “We experienced incredible trauma during his first three years when the answer was right in my purview.”
Her “aha” moment came in 2016 at a dental continuing education meeting in Boston, where she discovered the connection between children’s dental growth and development and the increase in commonly seen (but not normal) symptoms associated with sleep and breathing disorders in children.
Researchers argue that these disorders (and others) are relatively new problems afflicting modern humans that can be traced to a shrinking of our jaws. Problems we once thought were based primarily on genetics are tied to lifestyle.
“Epigenetics—or looking at culture, airways, the foods kids eat—reveals a lot of changes affecting kids’ mouth structures,” Dr. Ballinger notes. “Form starts to follow function,” so feeding kids processed foods or food in pouches that they slurp rather than chew means the structures no longer are doing the same work—or growing to the same size.”
Since this realization, she has never looked back. Determined to ‘be the change’ needed in her family and profession, she helped her own children address the health struggles holding them back. Then she set out to help the hundreds of children she has cared for in her practice. Her philosophy evolved from a symptom-based dental care model to a genuinely preventive and interceptive model focused on addressing root causes.
Focusing on airways and early intervention
“Most dental offices are teeth-focused when we could be looking at oral health in the context of the whole body. The maxilla (upper jaw) influences the borders of so many other things,” Dr. Ballinger notes. “One of the key things it influences is the airway. By expanding the oral cavity, we can also improve the child’s daytime and nighttime breathing, which in turn improves sleeping, eating, immunity, and so much more.”
She continues her explanation, “The tongue needs room to move both ways. Our airways have evolved from the size of a hot dog to that of a straw. Narrow airways are directly related to mouth breathing and sleep breathing disorders (like obstructive sleep apnea), which can cause irreversible neuro-cognitive damage.” In fact, 90 percent of ADHD symptoms and poor sleep symptoms are precisely the same, she points out.
To focus on the number of hours of sleep without studying the quality of that sleep (is it quiet? invisible? dry?) misses the point. Deep sleep helps regenerate cells, release growth hormones, and clean out the garbage your body and brain have collected during the day. “Poor sleep can lead to a 10 to 15 percent loss in I.Q. over time,” she warns.
Moreover, she explains that kids who don’t get to their parasympathetic state (i.e., quiet “rest and digest” condition) at night are often labeled as “disruptive,” which affects the whole family. “By intervening far sooner in a child’s life, we can play an important part in their development, giving them a treatment plan to help their oral structure course-correct so they can get the function they were meant to have.”
“This type of approach is a thinking person’s game,” Dr. Ballinger emphasizes. “It’s about dealing with the whole puzzle to get each patient to be the best version of themselves—in terms of anatomy, physiology, behavior, etc.”
Because teeth are attached to bone cavities (which influence nasal, mouth, and throat airways), and because 50 percent of children’s growth is completed before age five, focusing on airways and intervening early in life are both critical for preventing disease and optimizing health.
A tiny practice with a big impact
As Dr. Ballinger continued connecting the dots, she decided, “There aren’t enough people doing this,” and began lining up the proverbial tools on the tray for going off on her own.
Then the pandemic hit. There could not have been a worse time to be trying to make a living in the dental industry. On the other hand, she reflects that there wasn’t a better time to start her own “tiny practice” within her husband’s practice on Elm Street (in Pittsfield).
Word quickly spread about her new practice and its impact on children—and it grew dramatically in terms of the number of patients and the miles they traveled to see her. Parents desperate to find answers to their children’s struggles found a much-needed sanctuary.
“The best references came from women—parents, grandparents, friends who had been astounded by the results. People who had been told by other practices that “It’s not that bad” were now introduced to a new expectation: “It can be better.”
Parents find her because their child is suffering from any of a number of symptoms, such as chronic stuffy nose, bad breath, bed wetting, restless sleep, snoring, mouth breathing, speech difficulties, ear infections, over/under bites, hyperactivity, anxiety, or circles under the eyes. Once they find her, she makes it a welcoming and life-changing experience.
“We are making tremendous discoveries,” Dr. Ballinger affirms, citing the monumental research by Stanford University and other institutions. “It can be scary to be a female business owner trying to evolve standard industry thinking,” she admits. “You have to ignore the noise you’ve been taught by the insurance industry and completely change your business model. I’m an airway dentist now, focused on prevention and treating root causes.”
She and her staff are deeply moved by the letters of gratitude from parents like Sarah Nix, who wrote: “Dr. Ballinger has been the single most important factor in my daughter’s transformed health. For the first time, I felt like I had a partner who was committed to setting my kids on a path to lifelong health, not constant sickness. They always work with us from a place of love—something we feel every time we are there.”
“Surrounded by brilliant thinkers”—an empowering female workplace
The Good to Grow office at 740 Williams Street, Suite C, in Pittsfield, greets you with soft colors and positive energy from the moment you step inside the doorway, but that didn’t just happen.
As Dr. Ballinger puts it, “We have six working geniuses on our team—all women.” Diana, a registered dental hygienist and wellness educator, also turned her passion for helping her son into a professional calling. Taryn, a certified lactation counselor and myofunctional educator, offers specialized lactation support, as well as massage and craniosacral therapy, to “help relieve tension, eliminate pain, boost immunity, and reset the body’s nervous system.”
Dakota, who babysat for Dr. Ballinger’s kids as a teen, has been with Good to Grow since its beginning and is now a certified dental assistant and myofunctional educator. Allie, a talented orthodontic appliance specialist, manufactures all in-house-made appliances. Tracy (Taryn’s mom) is Good to Grow’s financial coordinator and Berkshire District Dental Assistant Association president. Haley, their sterilization assistant, is currently satisfying her hours towards becoming a certified licensed dental assistant—a dream she’s had since she was a young girl.
“I’m surrounded by brilliant thinkers,” Dr. Ballinger notes. “There is so much opportunity to help them elevate their status, and I get so much joy and pride out of providing a safe, supportive space and seeing them grow.” She feels fortunate to work with women whose risk-taking, passion, and belief in what they’re doing make them true partners in the practice. “They are constantly finding different strengths, lighting each other’s fires,” she beams.
Collaborating locally and globally to make a difference
“I’m trying to integrate all the pieces under one roof the best I can,” Dr. Ballinger says. That includes traditional things like wellness exams, dental cleanings, cavity prevention, and teeth straightening, along with non conventional things like sleep screening, early airway orthodontics, laser frenectomy, myofunctional therapy, and certified lactation counseling.
“We work collaboratively with pediatricians, allergists, ENTs, school counselors, speech therapists, family members—and whoever else can help us diagnose and treat the child,” she affirms. “It takes forward thinking and even bravery to act outside the traditional medical system, but we know we are preparing our patients for a long, healthy life with less suffering.”
Beyond her practice, Dr. Ballinger is so committed to airway-centric pediatric dentistry that she cofounded The Endeavour Group, an international foundation and pediatric branch of the American Academy of Physiological Medicine & Dentistry (AAPMD) dedicated to “evolving standard pediatric dental thinking.” For example, The Endeavor Group is responsible for influencing the ADA to make essential screening (pediatric dental visits that include the nose, mouth, and breathing) a standard of care.
Started during the pandemic shutdown of 2020, the global foundation serves (per its website) as a “valuable think tank and guiding force to move the healthcare community from CURIOUS to ADVANCED so that every community has a treatment team to expertly QUARTERBACK for children with airway issues.” Each week, the 15 core members meet via Zoom to discuss protocols to best diagnose and treat airway issues in the 71-month-old and younger population, develop screening tools, educate practitioners with monthly webinars, and promote multidisciplinary treatment.
All the more evidence that Dr. Lauren Ballinger is indeed “in the right place and put here for a reason.”
