Baby teeth should be cared for

Press, 15 September 1986, Page 4

Baby teeth should be cared for

By

DESMOND SMITH

8.D.5., D.D.P.H.

Babies look really cute when they are born, with their pink and white complexions, their little hands and feet which move constantly and go nowhere, their often bald heads and their gummy mouths. Mind you, every so often, one is born with a couple of teeth already in position and the poor mother who is breastfeeding has to hope she does hot have too vigorous an offspring. It does not take long, even with the previously toothless ones, before teeth start arriving in great numbers and, by the age of two, most toddlers have 20 of them filling up all available spaces. They are certainly important, as any young mother who has had to feed a pre-schooler can tell you. When they are healthy, they eat anything from bricks to bacon.

Baby teeth may look small and delicate, but they are still covered by the same tough enamel which covers the teeth of an adult. It needs to be tough, for, in a normal mouth, it is subject to pounding forces which would shatter most ordinary materials. Sound teeth, however, can take all of that and more if they are kept in their original state. Of course, if they are subjected to frequent contact with sweet foods, the bacteria in the mouth start playing a part and cavities develop. This is even more likely if the child has not been given the opportunity to absorb fluoride into the teeth by having it in the water or by sucking tablets. Sometimes, tooth decay starts very early in a youngster’s life and it is a distressing thing for any dental nurse or dentist to see cavities all round the mouth of a little one who is not yet 2 years old. In most cases, such a state of affairs if brought about by the misplaced kindness of parents or grandparents who feed the child tasty sweet things such as biscuits or sweetened drinks, between meals. The poor youngster cannot understand why anything hot, cold or sweet thereafter always hurts to eat. In New Zealand, we have perhaps the most

highly organised system in the world for the dental treatment of pre-school children. By the age of 4 years, approximately 85 per cent of them are enrolled at a dental clinic and are seen on a regular basis. Early enrolment (usually by 2J4 years) ensures that the child’s first contact with dentistry is at a time when no repair work is required and no bad impressions are formed.

Naturally enough, some young patients will eventually require a degree of filling work, but,, compared to years gone by, this number is very small indeed and most children now start school with their baby teeth untouched by the ravages of decay. Spaces in the mouth which must ultimately accommodate permanent teeth are kept patent and functional by the continued presence of the milk teeth. On the other hand, if the first dentition is neglected through failure to provide fluoride protection, through insistence on feeding sugary foods often, and through neglect to enrol a child with a clinic at an early age, many teeth which would

Word of Mouth

otherwise be sound require fillings or, worse still, extraction. The result is that junior is often left with insufficient teeth to chew adequately, spaces for second teeth start to close up, and jaws fail to develop to their full size. Nature does a pretty good job in providing us with what we need for our

well-being and she is never guilty of giving us what is unnecessary. Two sets of teeth are essential if we are to have an efficient chewing mechanism during all stages of our growth. We just cannot afford to neglect the first set.