Can You Still Get Forward Growth After 18? An Age-by-Age Answer

You're 16 or 17. You've watched the side-by-side edits, recessed midface left, "forward grown" right, and someone in the comments said the window slams shut at 18. So now you're counting months.

Here's the straight answer: no routine grows your maxilla forward, at any age. While your face is still growing, professionals can guide it, but only to fix a real problem such as an underbite, a narrow upper jaw or a blocked airway. Once growth ends, usually between 15 and 18, only surgery moves it forward (Children's Hospital of Philadelphia).

What a search snippet can't tell you is where you stand. The cutoff isn't your birthday; it's your growth stage, and that varies by years. Think of it as the window and the frame: before growth ends, treatment can guide bone. After, the frame is set, but almost everything around it is still yours to change.

How do you actually grow your maxilla forward?

You don't, not by yourself. Every method with real evidence is run by a clinician to fix a diagnosed problem, and all but surgery need you to still be growing. None adds projection to a healthy face.

What doesn't work:

• Mewing. The American Association of Orthodontists says there's no scientific evidence it reshapes the jaw, and that it can loosen teeth and shift the bite (AAO). Its best-known promoter, Mike Mew, was struck off the UK dental register in 2024 and lost his appeal in May 2026 (judgment). Full story: what mewing is.
• Hard chewing. In a six-month adult trial, daily gum built a stronger bite, not a different jaw (our breakdown).
• DIY devices. Home expanders and bone smashing can damage teeth and joints.

So the honest "natural" method is protective: breathe through your nose, sleep, eat enough, and your face reaches the shape your genes aimed for. Nothing pushes past it.

Is it too late for you? Check your growth window

Probably not as late as forums claim, but only an X-ray settles it; timing varies by years. In a scan study of 140 people, the palate's midline suture (the seam expanders work on) usually stayed open into the mid-teens; only 3 of 13 boys aged 14 to 17 showed even partial fusion (Angelieri et al., 2013).

Four honest questions:

1. Have you grown taller in the past year? Then your face is very likely still growing.
2. Is your bite off? Lower front teeth in front of the uppers, or a crossbite, is a time-sensitive reason to see an orthodontist.
3. Do you mouth-breathe? Mouth open at rest, snoring, a dry mouth on waking, a nose that's always blocked. Pediatricians are told to screen every child and teen for snoring (AAP, 2012).
4. Did the worry start with a selfie? Skip to the selfie section below.

How to read it: yes to 1 means your window is open, which matters only if 2 or 3 is also yes. Yes to 2 or 3: see a professional, at any age. Only 4? Probably nothing to fix.

How to get forward growth at 14, 15, 16, or 17

At 14 to 17 you can't add forward growth, but you can make sure nothing is stealing it, and that part is time-sensitive. Normal bite and breathing? There's nothing to order; your face is doing its job. If not, the next year or two matters more than any later decade.

This month:

• Fix the airway first. In children, mouth breathing, enlarged adenoids and atypical facial growth feed each other (Zhang et al., 2024). The evidence is strongest in younger kids, but allergies, a deviated septum and big tonsils are worth treating at any age.
• If the check flagged anything, see an orthodontist. Ask: am I still growing, and is there a problem worth treating now?
• Rest posture, not force. Lips together, nose breathing and a relaxed tongue on the palate is a healthy default. Pressing hard for hours is what the AAO warns can shift teeth.

Can you still get forward growth after 18?

Mostly no. By 18 most faces have finished growing, and nothing done at home moves an adult maxilla. Three honest exceptions, none of them a routine:

• Late developers. Still getting taller at 18 or 19? An orthodontist can check whether growth is left.
• Miniscrew-assisted expansion (MARPE). It can widen a narrow upper jaw in adults, but a 2026 meta-analysis found it moved the maxilla forward by under one degree on average (Xie et al., 2026).
• Surgery. Le Fort I or double-jaw advancement physically moves the upper jaw forward, usually for bite or sleep-apnea problems. Who it's for: forward-growth surgery.

Nor does your face freeze at 18: following men from about 17 to 47, Michigan researchers found their lower jaws rotated slightly forward and chins grew more prominent (Pecora et al., 2008). It's slow and unsteerable; see when your face stops changing.

What can you change after 18 without surgery?

Almost everything about how forward your face reads, just not the bone. These levers work faster than mewing ever claimed to:

• Lower body fat. Facial and under-chin fat often hides more jaw than bone shape does; when your jawline shows has the thresholds.
• Head-over-shoulders posture. Forward head posture juts the chin and buries the jaw angle; stacking your head changes the line the moment you do it.
• A beard shaped to your face, the only lever that changes your outline overnight.
• Photos from 5+ feet away, which show your real face.

All of these change how you land on people, not what a ruler says, so check that directly: our photo test takes about a minute and shows how your face reads at first glance. The analysis runs before you pay; the full report, $5 one-time, turns your biggest levers into a dated 7/30/90-day plan ranked by impact. It's a perception read, not a clinical tool.

How do you get your lower jaw to grow forward?

Same rule, different bone: only while growing, and only for a real problem. For a lower jaw that sits back, orthodontists use functional appliances such as the Twin Block around the growth spurt. A Cochrane review found they cut overjet (how far the upper teeth stick out) by roughly 5 mm, but the change in jaw position was small or unclear, on low-quality evidence (Batista et al., 2018). Adults have chin or jaw surgery, or a beard; see receding chin in men.

Do you even have "no forward growth"?

Maybe not. Plenty of "recessed maxilla" verdicts come from a front camera. At about 12 inches, a selfie makes the base of your nose look roughly 30% wider than a photo from 5 feet (Rutgers, on Ward et al., 2018), so a nose that "leads the face" is often lens distance. Retake it at eye level, 5+ feet away, zoomed in. For a proper side-profile check: what forward growth is.

And keep the stakes honest. People read faces whole: the same upper face looks more attractive above a more attractive lower face (Abbas & Duchaine, 2008). Nobody you meet is measuring your maxilla. We think a first impression works like a threshold, not a ladder, and most men clear it on things they control. See how your photo actually reads.

The bottom line

How you get forward growth depends on which side of the window you're on. Still growing: get airway and bite problems treated by a professional, and skip the routines. Past it: only surgery moves bone forward, and that's for function first. Everything else is the frame.

Your face doesn't have a projection number that decides your life. It has an effect on people, and almost all of it is reachable without touching a bone. Stop counting months and see what you're working with.

Studies referenced

• Abbas & Duchaine (2008). Perception 37(8):1187–1196.
• Angelieri et al. (2013). Am J Orthod Dentofacial Orthop 144(5):759–769.
• Batista et al. (2018). Cochrane Database Syst Rev CD003452.
• De Clerck et al. (2010). Am J Orthod Dentofacial Orthop 138(5):577–581.
• Marcus et al. (2012). Pediatrics 130(3):576–584.
• Pecora et al. (2008). Am J Orthod Dentofacial Orthop 134(4):496–505.
• Ward et al. (2018). JAMA Facial Plast Surg 20(4):333–335.
• Xie et al. (2026). Int Dent J 76(5):109779.
• Zhang J. et al. (2024). Front Public Health 12:1494517.
• Zhang W. et al. (2015). PLoS ONE 10(6):e0130096.