SAVING THE BABIES

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18617, 12 July 1930, Page 10

SAVING THE BABIES

(By HYGEIA). A TALK TO MOTHERS ON CHILDREN’S TEETH. This is a question of the very greatest importance and interest to parents, and all public health workers—dentists, doctors, and nurses—realise that the active co-operation and intelligent interest of the parents is absolutely essential for success in any campaign for stemming the tide of dental decay. And save the teeth we must, for “of all the disorders which beset humanity it is probable than dental disease is responsible, directly and indirectly, for a larger aggregate amount of illhealth and unhappiness than any other form of disease.” Dental disease is an ogre in our midst, a real, everpresent menace, from which only knowledge and prompt action can save our children. The Problem and the Danger. Imagine, out of some 60,000 New Zealand school children examined by the school medical officers less than four in every hundred had perfect sets of teeth! And over half the children had some untreated decayed teeth. This means danger! Decayed teeth are full of poisonous germs; the poison is absorbed into the system, swallowed with the food, and may infect the tonsils or other organs. The'results may be anything from general “below parness” (if one may be allowed to use such a term), indigestion, and lowered resistance to acute infection of the tonsils, rheumatism, and heart disease —a long, long list of evils.

Moreover, remember this: the teeth cannot be considered as a separate unit in the structure of the body. What affects the teeth must affect every part in some degree. The teeth are a visible index of the soundness and good quality or otherwise of the bones and other structures of the body. That is a sobering thought, is it not?

The Cost. If our modern “civilised” teeth are to be kept “safe”—that is, repaired and clean, free from open decay—think of the cost! This is a point which comes home to most of us with painful regularity. Multiply your own family dentist's bill by the number of families you know, and then think further of all the families in this small country; then go overseas in mind and consider thfe civilised, world’s bill for dental repairs! You Can’t do it; the brain reels. Is There a Solution? The trouble is so universal, so widespread, it almost seems hopeless. But are we to sit down and accept defeat? Surely not. Although there is much that we do not know, and much research work still to do on the subject of dental disease, it is safe to say that the trouble could be reduced by half in a generation if what we know now were put into practice at once. The Causes of Dental Decay.

The fact of the matter is that modern teeth are “Jerry built,” so they naturally tend to “fall to pieces,” and even if they are soundly built they are badly used. The teeth, like every other part of the body, must be first soundly constructed, and then exercised wisely, if they are to be maintained in

health. The average modern diet, besides being deficient in “building materials,” is soft and requires little or

no mastication. We have an outstandingly important and interesting lesson to learn in New Zealand from the change which has taken place in the teeth of the Maoris since the white man came. Before our advent the Maoris had absolutely perfect teeth—sound, even, well-worn teeth in wide strong jaws. Now their teeth are no better than our own. What has taken place? In their native state the Maoris ate natural foods, raw or cooked in such a way that all nutriment was retained. Fern-root constituted a considerable portion of the diet, and ensured hard use for the teeth. Considerable chewing must be required to extract nourishment from fern-root! In our “civilised” diet all sorts of machine processes have been interposed between us and food in the natural state. We scarcely know what has been added or taken away—chemicals are added to preserve, to flavour, to give attractive colour or to bleach, essential parts of grains are removed in milling to produce a “refined” product, and so on. And there is no equivalent of fern-root in our diet!

You see, then, what has happened to bring about the degeneration in the teeth of the Maoris. To put it simply, they have adopted our foods and food habits with results which, with the knowledge we now possess, we know to be absolutely inevitable. The same thing would happen with any native people adopting our food and habits. The Story of the Teeth. Before going on to discuss the details of children’s food and food habits in relation to the teeth, we must briefly review the beautiful “story of the teeth.” Every mother—indeed all parents—should know the elementary facts in regard to the building of the teeth. The first and most impressive fact is this: Seven months before the baby is born the foundations of every tooth he will ever have in his head have been laid down, and active work has begun on the first set. By the time the baby is born the first teeth are practically completed—well or ill, the work is done for ever! The second teeth are begun before birth, but rapid, active work does not begin until about the time the baby is born; from then on building proceeds apace, and most of the crowns of the permanent teeth are completed by the time the baby is three years old.

Teeth are built out of blood, which conveys the materials they require to the tiny cell workers building the teeth and performing the miracle of enamelling the crowns. Whether the work is good or bad depends mainly on whether the cell workers are kept fully supplied all the time with rich, red blood. In the case of the first teeth, the blood supply is that of the mother. If the mother’s diet is deficient in this way or contains the poisonous products of accumulation of waste materials in the body (say from constipation) the baby's teeth suffer accordingly. You see, therefore that imperfections in the first set of teeth will be due to supplies received before birth, and imperfectations in the second set will be due to supplies received after birth, mainly during the first two or three

years of infancy. (To be continued.)