Pediatric facial fractures

What are pediatric facial fractures?

A fracture is another word for a broken bone. When your child is diagnosed with a facial fracture this means they have broken a bone in their face. Facial fractures often result from various types of high impact trauma including car accidents, falls and sports injuries.

What are the different types of pediatric facial fractures?

Facial fractures are commonly located around the eye, nose, cheek or jaw. There are two general categories of facial fractures that can help to decide what is needed to treat your child’s injury.

• Non-displaced facial fractures - Broken bones in the face are still in the correct position. This type of injury can heal well without surgery.

• Displaced facial fractures - Bones in the face are broken and are out of position. This type of injury often requires surgery to realign the bones.

What are the signs and symptoms of pediatric facial fractures?

• Pain, bruising, swelling to the face

• Unable to open or close the mouth

• Teeth don’t fit together correctly

• Eyes don’t move correctly

• Changes to the shape of the face

• Numbness or weakness in the face

• Bleeding or clear drainage from the nose or ear

How are pediatric facial fractures diagnosed?

Your doctor will do a physical exam if they think your child has a facial fracture. If needed, X-rays or a CT scan will then be ordered to evaluate the condition of the bones.

How are pediatric facial fractures treated?

Nonsurgical treatment

At Children's Health, our craniofacial experts will determine if surgery is needed for your child’s facial fracture(s). Often, no surgery is needed, and the bones will heal on their own. Your doctor may recommend eating soft foods and avoiding further injury (for example, no contact sports) while this occurs.

Your child will be seen in our outpatient clinic on a routine basis to ensure the bones heal well.

Surgery

If surgery is required, our team of craniofacial experts use state-of-the-art surgical procedures and equipment to ensure your child has the best possible outcome.