Yahoo Lifestyle Looking After Baby Teeth
Whether your baby’s smile is gappy or just plain gummy, it’s never too early to start him on the road to good oral health. The reason? His precious teeth are forming long before he needs a teething ring. In fact, according to Sydney-based paediatric dentist Dr Juliette Scott, your baby’s first teeth start forming during your second trimester, and all 20 primary teeth – also known as baby, milk or deciduous teeth – are hidden within the gums at birth (though some bubs are even born with a tooth or two!). His adult teeth start forming after birth.
While fluoride supplements aren’t generally recommended during pregnancy, you do need to maintain a balanced diet with plenty of calcium and vitamin D, which preliminary studies show may help the development of your baby’s tooth enamel. “As with everything,
if you’re keeping yourself healthy and you’re taking the appropriate vitamins, that does help with the formation of your baby’s teeth,” Dr Scott says.
Most baby teeth don’t start erupting until around six to nine months of age and when they do, they can appear tiny and insignificant. Don’t be fooled, says Dr Scott. “Baby teeth last a lot longer than most people think. The front ones may fall out at age six or seven, but the back ones stay until you’re 12 or 13. Baby teeth are also really important for space and guiding the development and positioning of the second teeth. They’re also important for eating – it’s hard to eat if you have sore teeth – and for appearance.”
They can also impact on your child in other ways, with research showing young kids with decay may have growth and developmental problems and be more prone to obesity, and that gum disease may be linked to heart disease later in life. “Children with decay may not grow as well and can wind up being malnourished and in pain,” says Dr Scott,
“so take all of your child’s teeth seriously.”
A surge in tooth decay
This advice from Dr Scott has never been more important. After decades of improved dental health, largely thanks to fluoridated water, tooth decay in children is once again on the rise. Dentists are now seeing a surge in severe tooth decay in littlies as young as 12 months. They’re also seeing a rise in enamel defects in kids.
Enamel is the protective outer layer of the tooth and in some kids it simply doesn’t form properly, leaving them susceptible to tooth sensitivity, decay and abscesses, not to mention extensive teeth work and even surgery. In fact, according to the statistics, dental restorations and extractions are one of the key reasons behind hospital admissions for children under the age of 14, and thousands of these kids are preschool age.
Unfortunately, the reasons for this are many and varied. When it comes to enamel defects, The Australian Dental Association (ADA) says that there are more than 120 potential causes. Many of these are out of the control of parents, such as illnesses experienced during pregnancy, premature births and childhood diseases (such as middle-ear infections), where high fevers may interfere with the development of enamel.
But the biggest cause of early tooth decay is prolonged feeding with bottles of infant formula or breastmilk. Both types of milk contain lactose, a sugar which, combined with plaque, helps to erode the enamel of primary teeth, especially if you leave your baby to suckle all night. The increased use of sugary foods and drinks, such as juice, is also a factor.
Caring for gums and teeth
All this is why it’s important to set up good cleaning habits early. Even before your bub’s teeth appear, you need to be keeping his gums and mouth clean, as babies are also susceptible to things such as oral thrush and mouth ulcers. “It’s a good idea to get used to cleaning the mouth and gums from about four months,” says Dr Scott. “A wet washer is usually the best thing – just give the gums a bit of a massage.”
Once the buds appear, you can do as some dentists recommend and wipe each tooth with a wet cloth, front and back, after each feed. Or you could take Dr Scott’s advice and start using a small, soft toothbrush and water from the moment that first tooth pops through. “It’s about developing good habits early,” says Dr Scott. “What I find is that a lot of people keep thinking, ‘Oh, my child’s too young,’ and then wind up with a two-year-old who’s never had his teeth brushed who then creates all sorts of fuss, as two-year-olds do.”
Toothpaste is not recommended until 18 months of age (and then only the low-flouride kind), although this is a broad guideline, says Dr Scott.
“It does depend on your circumstances. It’s worthwhile talking to your dentist or oral health professional because if you are in a non-fluoridated area or your child is at very high risk of teeth problems, then you might want to talk about introducing toothpaste earlier.”
Most children don’t need to have their first dental visit until about six months after the eruption of the first tooth – generally around age one – and then should see the tooth-man every six to 12 months after that, depending on their teeth. And most enamel defects don’t show until the baby molars have appeared, around age two, so be sure to visit a dentist then. “You may not be able to prevent the defects, but you can manage them a lot better if you know what you’re dealing with,” says Dr Scott.
Good habits for life
You should also be sure to set up good feeding and sleeping habits early. Dr Scott advocates a routine of feed-play-sleep, as she has seen littlies as young as 12 months suffering from tooth decay as a result of feeding-to-sleep practices.
“A lot of the habits you develop with little ones in terms of feeding and sleeping can have a big impact on their teeth later on,” she says. “And never put anything else into your child’s bottle apart from breastmilk, formula or water.”
The ADA suggest having moved bub on to a cup by 12 months to reduce the time that decay-producing sugars are in contact with his teeth. Also, avoid adding sugar, honey or lemon to his food, drinks and dummy.
Once on solids, make sure your cherub is getting a wide variety of nutritious foods, especially those rich in calcium and low in acids and sugars, and that he’s drinking plenty of water. If it’s not fluoridated, you may want to look into using kid-safe tooth mousse (a tooth-strengthening topical paste), or start on full-fluoride toothpaste at a younger age, but speak to your dentist first.
Finally, don’t forget your own oral health – studies show the healthier your mouth, the healthier your baby’s. “Babies are born without bacteria in the mouth and then they gradually acquire bacteria from all sorts of sources, but mainly from the primary caregiver,which is usually the mum,” says Dr Scott.
“The way the bacteria get transferred is that that you taste their food, you lick their dummy, you kiss them, etc, so the cleaner your mouth is, the healthier theirs will be.”
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