INTRODUCTION TO DENTAL CARIES

Tooth decay, cavities, or caries are the terms used to describe the ‘holes’ in teeth. Bacteria and other microorganisms are responsible for the breakdown of the tooth structure to create holes in the tooth. Caries does not only affect adults; it can even affect toddlers and children.

Just like adults take certain precautions to prevent tooth decay, children, too, must take such precautions to protect their pearly whites. However, children will only follow what they are taught by their parents and guardians, and eventually, that is how they form their habits. If the adults around them will neglect their oral hygiene, the children, too, will neglect it.

Primary teeth or milk teeth are very important from a dentist’s point of view. They are known as the space maintainers for permanent teeth. Therefore, dentists try not to extract these teeth as by doing so, there can be crowding in the permeant teeth. To fix crowding, your child would have to undergo an expensive orthodontic treatment. Hence, you must encourage your child to follow good oral hygiene practices to prevent things from getting out of hand.

HOW TO PREVENT DENTAL CARIES IN CHILDREN?

Maintaining good oral hygiene by making a few changes in your lifestyle is the major way of preventing caries in adults as well as children. Several ways can help your child to maintain good oral hygiene that will eventually protect their teeth from caries.

A few tips to prevent dental caries in children are:

1. Start even before the appearance of your child’s teeth

Being a parent, you can start with maintaining your child’s oral hygiene even before their teeth appear. You can use a clean damp cloth to gently wipe away the milk residue left in the infant’s mouth. There are finger toothbrushes available in the market that you can use to gently wipe off the residue and massage their gums.

2. Milk bottle caries

Do not give a milk bottle to your child while he is in bed. Milk residue will stick to the surface of his teeth for hours, which can cause rampant tooth decay. Instead, when the child is about 6 months old, you should encourage the use of a sippy cup. A sippy cup prevents excessive contact of the milk or juice with the teeth.

3. Tooth Brushing

As soon as your baby gets his first tooth, which is around 6-7 months of age, you should brush it with an infant toothbrush and a very tiny amount of toothpaste. Make sure to use toothpaste that is approved by the American Dental Association (ADA) and is fluoridated.

When your child is around 2 years old, your child must be holding the toothbrush themselves and should be able to spit while brushing. This would prevent him from ingesting toothpaste. Furthermore, to encourage the child to brush their teeth, you can buy them infant toothbrushes of their favorite cartoon characters, and a yummy flavored toothpaste. Moreover, you must brush your teeth in front of your child to help them get familiar with this habit.

Encourage your child to brush their teeth twice a day: once after breakfast, and once before bed.

The brushing technique is also important. For this reason, for children below the age of 8, you must supervise them to ensure they are brushing all sides thoroughly. Another way you can teach them is by brushing your teeth with them to demonstrate how it is done. You can even make use of online videos that are specially made for kids to help them brush their teeth. Lastly, you can ask your dentist to teach your child how to brush his teeth.

4. Flossing

When your child has 2 teeth adjacent to each other, you can pass floss between them. This will encourage the child to floss on their own once they are adults.

5. Visits to the dentist

The ADA recommends that your child should visit the dentist by their first birthday to help get them familiarised with the dentists. This also helps to decrease dental phobia in adults as they are already accustomed to dentists from a much younger age. Children’s dentistry or pediatric dentistry is another field of dentistry that deals with all the dental or jaw problems faced by children.

To make the tooth surface less susceptible to caries, dentists may even apply topical fluoride to the teeth, causing the tooth surface to become harder. To prevent caries, dentists can even place a thin varnish of resin in the grooves of the posterior teeth. This technique is called fissure sealants.

6. Dietary changes

Try to give your child sugar-free juices, and whole fruits and vegetables, which is even better. You should also try to limit the sugary intake of your child, such as candies, gummies, etc. However, kids will be kids and may not listen to you if you stop them from having their favorite chocolate bar. Completely stopping your child from these delicacies will be difficult, but you can allow your child to enjoy their favorite treats at any one given time during the day. You can ask them to brush their teeth afterward. This helps to limit the frequency of having these sweet treats in a day. Having these sweet treats throughout the day is more harmful than having them all at a specific time of the day.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Good oral hygiene begins from home. If you do not practice good oral hygiene, your child following in your footsteps is very high. For the sake of your children and their pearly whites, you must adapt these changes yourself so that your child follows in your footsteps. People usually say dentistry is expensive, but it is your negligence that makes dentistry expensive. If you visit your dentist regularly, you might be able to get away with a tiny filling, but if you do not, it might be too late and the only option you are left with is with the extraction of your tooth.