Sleep Apnea & Jaw Surgery
May 8, 2026
Why does double jaw surgery help with sleep apnea?
When we think about double jaw surgery as an option for patients with sleep apnea, what we’re ultimately doing is bringing the jaws forward.
Think about the jaws as a scaffold for the tongue. If we position the jaws in a more forward position, it brings the tongue forward and brings the tongue out of the back of the throat, and it helps restore facial balance in terms of esthetics and lip support, elongation of the neck, and positioning of the chin, and also dramatically opens the airway.
”Hi, I'm Dr. Rebecca Bockow at Inspired Orthodontics, and I'm here to answer the question why does double jaw surgery help with sleep apnea? Well, sleep apnea is often when the airway closes through the night. An apneic event is when a patient stops breathing, combined with an oxygen desaturation.
”And so if the airway is itself blocked, maybe the tongue is in the back of the throat. Then a patient wakes up through the night. And so when we think about double jaw surgery as an option for patients with sleep apnea, what we’re ultimately doing is bringing the jaws forward.
”So if we think about the jaws as a scaffold for the tongue, if we position the jaws in a more forward position, it brings the tongue forward and brings the tongue out of the back of the throat.
”So I brought our skull here. So if we look at our skull, if we think about our ideal landmarks, we want the upper jaw to be in approximately the same vertical plane as the forehead. And we want the chin to be in that same vertical plane as well. And so when we do our jaw surgery, we're MMA stands for Maxillomandibular Advancement. As we bring both jaws forward, it brings the tongue out of the back of the throat, and it helps restore facial balance in terms of esthetics and lip support, elongation of the neck, and positioning of the chin, and also dramatically opens the airway.
”MMA isn't the right plan for every patient. But if you're interested in learning about maxillomandibular advancement or surgical correction for your sleep apnea, please come find us. At InspiredOrtho.com, you can follow us on Instagram @InspiredOrtho as well. Thank you so much, and look forward to meeting you."
Dr. Bockow loves to create beautiful smiles for her patients, setting them up for a lifetime of dental and airway health.
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