Dental advice for moms
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By Hong Kee-sang
In my previous columns, I attempted to provide a better understanding of how children’s teeth develop decay. In today’s column, I outline practical steps parents can take to protect their children’s teeth.
1. Oral hygiene
Children need to brush their teeth three times a day. When brushing after breakfast and after lunch, the quality of the brushing isn’t very important — just the fact that the children are brushing their teeth is sufficient.
When brushing before bed time, however, meticulous cleaning is essential. Parents of younger children such as infants and toddlers should both floss and brush their children’s teeth. On the other hand, parents of slightly older children such as those in kindergarten or elementary school should floss their children’s teeth and then let the children brush on their own. However, parents should check the quality of their children’s brushing by having the children lie down on the floor, and then, sitting behind their children’s heads (as dentists do at the clinic), look down into their children’s mouths. They should use their children’s still-wet toothbrush to brush the areas they missed.
Parents should also help their children develop good toothbrushing skills by providing feedback on where they need to brush better. They can also teach their children how to floss on their own using dental flossers. Teaching children these skills is not an easy task, however — many grown-ups don’t know how to brush their own teeth well. It’s not a skill that comes naturally with age.
2. Diet
Children need to eat well. A healthy, balanced diet is essential for healthy teeth. To lower the risk of developing tooth decay, children should cut down on sugary and starchy snacks such as candies and cookies. Parents should only hand them out as treats and not as regular snacks. Instead, children should eat more fruits and vegetables. They should also eat less of processed grains and more of whole grains.
In addition, parents should set a specific time for children’s meals and snacks. The longer food stays in children’s mouths, the more likely the children will develop tooth decay. When children begin to lose interest in their meals and wander off, parents should end meal time then and there, and then prepare a simple meal or snack for the children when they get hungry again later.
Finally, the last thing children should have in their mouths before bedtime is their toothbrushes. Except for water or barley tea, they shouldn’t drink milk, juice or other beverages before going to bed. The residues will contribute to rotting children’s teeth.
3. Extras
Fluoride, which can be found in fluoride toothpaste and mouth rinse, help significantly in preventing and slowing down tooth decay. However, fluoride toothpaste and mouth rinse should be used in moderation.
Chewing candies and gums with xylitol, a type of sweetener, helps actively suppress decay-causing germs. Studies have shown parents chewing such candies and gums several times a day prevent the transmission of decay-causing germs from the parents’ mouths to the infants’.
4. Dentists
Parents should bring their children to the dentist for regular checkups. Dentists have the necessary training and skill to detect tooth decay and its progress. In particular, dentists can check for tooth decay between adjacent teeth, which is very difficult to spot, using dental X-rays. They also perform professional mechanical tooth cleaning to thoroughly get rid of germs on tooth surfaces, a process that is very important in preventing and slowing the progress of tooth decay.
Dentists can also apply topical fluoride, in the form of gels and varnishes and ranging from 1,000 parts per million (ppm) to 25,000 ppm in strength, to allow fluoride to penetrate the surface of children’s teeth, suppress decay-causing bacteria and strengthen the teeth. The frequency of this procedure depends on each child’s decay risk.
Parents should also check with the family dentist if their children need sealants. Certain teeth, for example, six-year molars, have very pronounced pits and fissures that even the finest bristles on toothbrushes can’t clean. Dentists can use sealants to cover up these grooves. They put a very thin film of plastic on top of the grooves and harden the plastic with a blue light (known as the dental curing light) to seal the grooves and protect them from decay. The process is rather like caulking the cement between the tiles in your bathroom.
Many dentists feel that getting a family to change their eating habits or oral hygiene practices is a losing battle because behavior modification is hard. If it wasn’t, everyone would be watching what they ate, exercise frequently and be in tip-top physical condition. Still, parents should bear in mind the above tips lay the foundation for their children’s lifetime oral health.
The writer is a dentist at Seoul Children’s Dental Center in Cheongdam-dong, southern Seoul, and is a registered dentist in Australia. For questions, e-mail the writer at keesanghong@hotmail.com, call the dental clinic at (02) 515-0926, or visit the clinic’s website at https://www.seoulchildrendentalcenter.com.