FILLINGS IN YOUNG TEETH

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25659, 6 October 1944, Page 3

FILLINGS IN YOUNG TEETH

(By the Department of Health) Some parents have been concerned and a little puzzled by what they regard as the unnecessary fillings in newly-erupted teeth carried out at the dental clinics. There is a very good reason for this treatment. The first permanent molar aopears about the sixth year. If the nutrition is good, following vears of adequate milk and a balanced diet, the biting surface of that sixth-year molar is rounded, with shallow grooves. But to find the first molar in this condition is rare in New Zealand—a fact which is a striking commentary on our indifferent dietary practice, Indeed, a very high proportion of these first permanent molars have, at the time of their eruption, deep fissures on their biting surfaces. These deep fissures are caused bv a failure of calcification —due to shortages of lime and vitamin D in the diet. These deep, narrow clefts provide ideal harbourage for starchy, foods, the fermentable carbohydrates, and the toothbushicannot get into them:VDecay J of these* first 'molars, therefore, is: inevitable, aria parents express astonishment that the tooth should go so soon. / The clinics are merely getting in first when there are deep clefts within six months of eruption. The narrow fissure is cut out and filled until the tooth’is a nice rounded and proper shape. Tills is known as a prophylactic filling, and it forestalls certain decay in the tooth.