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Teeth, teeth …
It turns out that an early childhood carriage is a very common problem lately. Why so and how to deal with it, asked a specialist with 41 years of dental experience.
Docente of the therapeutic stomatology Chair of Stomatology Faculty of the University of Rīga Stradiņš (until 2009), defended the medical sciences candidate’s thesis at the Central Institute of Science-Research Stomatology of Moscow on the topic of local demineralisation of dental enamel clinic and treatment for children.
“dental caries develop only in local environments – where there is a tooth. It is not caused by heredity or, for example, gastrointestinal bacteria, etc. Early childhood caries are caused by bacteria that haunt the baby’s mouth, feed on carbohydrates that the child ingests with food and turn them into acids. Acids, in turn, dissolve tooth minerals and damage tooth enamel. The reasons for caries should therefore, above all, be sought after in a child’s dental hygiene and catering habits.
The quality of a child’s milk teeth is only affected by major dietary errors during a mother’s pregnancy. The condition of persistent teeth, less frequent milk teeth, may be affected by various diseases, such as some infectious diseases, rachitis, lack of vitamins or nutrients. ‘
There have been two recent trends in the world. The first generation – the one whose parents once cared deeply about child nutrition and dental hygiene – is now paying less attention (and not good at caring for them) to their children’s teeth, as there have been no such problems themselves. Consequently, statistics show that, despite the prevention available, the incidence of caries has been increasing in recent generations.
The second is an increase in dental erosions, which used to be seen only as adult guilt. Put simply, in the teeth, the kinds of bowls, hollows that are explained by the mass use of juices, refreshments, energy and power drinks are formed from excessive and frequent acid exposure. In children, such blame appears not only from lemonades and soft drinks, but also from juices.
It should be understood that anything that is sweet and contagious lands on a child’s teeth and creates a good environment for bacteria, especially between meals and at night when less saliva is released in a closed and warm mouth that acts as a kind of thermostat. If your teeth aren’t cleaned properly either, then bacteria have everything it takes to produce acid.
The more often and prolonged the acids on a child’s teeth, the sooner the tooth enamel loses the minerals it needs, and the carrot begins. For a while, this process can be reversible, as some minerals penetrate back into the teeth tissue from saliva. However, for saliva exposure to be sufficient, teeth must be unadulterated, clean. If your child has more than five meals during the day, including snacks, you can certainly expect to start developing caries.
The carriage begins from the outside of the tooth, from the enamel. The enamel is a transparent cap supposedly tucked over the head of the tooth (crown) and protects it, with much softer tissue underneath – a dentine that makes up the base mass of the tooth, while there is a kind of cavity in the middle of the tooth that houses nerves and blood vessels. The first sign of the beginning of the coach is that the enamel’s transparency is lost, and a matte spot appears on the tooth. Young children usually have it on their front teeth, both top and bottom, closer to their gums. Where the most active feed intake is taking place. If parents don’t pay enough attention to the children’s tooth application and don’t clean regularly, then very soon the enamel begins to change colour – becomes matte. At this point, there is still an opportunity to save something – improve hygiene so that saliva rinses your teeth better, as well as strengthen your tooth enamel by adding minerals to your saliva composition. The yolk seen by parents on their teeth may already be a dentine defect, meaning rushing to the dentist.
Until the age of three, the baby’s teeth should be watched by parents and preferably a hygienist or a family dentist. Simply, take the baby with you when someone in the family – the older sibling or parents – goes to the dentist. That’s how the child will gradually get to know the dentist’s office environment and not be afraid.
At the age of three, first dental control is required, in which the dentist will determine the risk group of caries the child is in – low, medium or high. Your doctor will also assess dental hygiene accordingly and will prescribe tooth enamel strengthening measures if necessary.
A hygienist should go every six months and children at high risk of caries should go as much as four times a year.
For those children who are not afraid of the dentist and visit regularly, short-term drilling in the milk tooth is often not painful at all, as the damage is not large and the milk teeth tend to be less sensitive as well. In addition, there are sealing materials that facilitate and shorten the sealing process.
Local anaesthesia shall be carried out by means of a chprici or a special apparatus, VAND, which is a device specially designed for dental anaesthesia. In the first option, the baby’s gums are filtered with a substance that renders the site insensitive to the jab and then anaesthesia is administered. In this case, quite a lot of terrain remains numb, and it’s often the case that children get bitten by a groan because of numbness after the procedure.
The apparatus DRIPS the anaesthetic substance through a small needle, which is not stabbed but only applied to the tooth, precisely around the tooth in need. The only inconvenience is to sit perfectly still during the procedure to administer the anaesthetic accurately. Maybe that’s why there are kids who choose a spritz that works faster.
Anaesthesia is always used in painful procedures if more guilt or teeth need to be removed. Premedication is possible in healthy children, which means that the child is given a sedative medicine in the form of a tablet or candle about 30 minutes before the procedure. The baby becomes calm, slightly sleepy and sits on the lap of an adult (mum or dad) who helps hold the baby’s arms and legs. Insert a rubber block into the baby’s mouth, which keeps the mouth open and allows the dentist to act. Even if a child cries during the procedure, they later can’t remember it.
It’s very difficult with those kids who have had a very unfortunate first time at the dentist and he’s been bullied. Then the route from re-visit to the time you manage to get your teeth repaired can also be four and five visits that require patience from both your doctor and your parents. There are different ways to gradually domesticate a child to the environment, to a chair and to a doctor. Sometimes to get a baby in a chair, she gets put in with her mum and swings up/down and gets used to having different games etc.
A very active micronutrient that strengthens tooth enamel is fluorine. From drinking water, food or toothpaste, it penetrates saliva but from it into the teeth and helps form an enamel about 5 times stronger against acid exposure. Many countries where fluorine in drinking water is in optimum quantities (not too much and not too little) have significantly lower rates of caries. There is almost no fluorine in drinking water in Latvia. So we should strengthen our teeth with fluorinated toothpastes, of course with proper nutrition and dental hygiene too.
Two – to three-year-olds can be given mineral foam to soak on their teeth overnight. After brushing her teeth, Mum or baby dabs the foam on her teeth with her finger.
It contains protein casein, calcium, phosphorus. The foam is used to improve saliva composition as saliva is the one that will feed your teeth during the night and will be able to fight acid attack more effectively.
Studies around the world have shown that fluorine, taken at the right doses, does not cause any pathologies. However, if fluor is absorbed too much, small spots like snowflakes can appear on tooth surfaces, which is only a minor cosmetic defect. This has been observed in children whose recommended dose of fluorine has been exceeded by exaggerating fluor tablets in the infant and further brushing the teeth with fluorine toothpaste. Therefore, the use of fluorine tablets and the choice of appropriate toothpaste should be subject to consultation by a hygienist or dentist.
Those people who adhere to ecological thinking and believe fluorine is detrimental to human health should pay heightened attention to dental hygiene, eating habits, and check their teeth more frequently with a dentist, in addition to the natural toothpaste they choose.
The row of milk teeth is arranged in a certain order and under each milk tooth is the permanent tooth chamber. As soon as the milk tooth loses its place not naturally, especially if it is more than one milk tooth, the chamber loses orientation and may not want to hatch or hatch in the wrong place – twisted and crooked. It causes problems. Milk teeth should therefore be tried to preserve as much as possible. Sometimes, when the milk teeth are damaged to the roots and there is nothing left of the tooth crown, you can try to mineralise and preserve only the roots. My practice has managed to save this situation and get the right teeth to hatch healthy and beautiful. However, it should be warned that there is a direct link between the health of milk and permanent teeth. Don’t think that when the right teeth grow up, the problem will be solved. By way of example, it could be described as if we remove an old piece of furniture from a dusty room, which is not specifically cleaned and in which the dust is returning, and put in a new piece of furniture, after a while we get exactly the same dusty piece of furniture as the previous one. The same is true with teeth – if the milk tooth caries are in the mouth, it can be expected that the real teeth will also be damaged, because the bacteria and habits present in the mouth do not change already. Moreover, it must be understood that the hatching of real teeth is not a solemn moment in which all teeth change at once. This is actually a fairly long and very dangerous time for the new real teeth, because as your tooth changes one after the other, there’s constantly some painful place in your baby’s mouth that you don’t want to touch, let alone clean. Consequently, the already emerged, permanent teeth are in a very unfavourable and bacterial environment for a long period of time. In addition, this time still coincides with starting school courses, shopping in a school buffet and respecting each other.
Therefore, milk tooth time is critical to creating healthy eating and dental hygiene habits in a child. Also during tooth shifts, parents should continue to pay close attention to a child’s teeth without having to lather and check how the child brushed their teeth, often also cleaning them.
When the baby starts to have the first teeth, he is keen to rub his gums. This is a very opportune time to get a child used to the fact that someone else can touch their mouth and gums too. At first, the child is given to gold special teething rings designed to make it easier for the teeth to come out. During this time, you can use a silicone thimble to rub your gums, later your teeth.
The first teeth are cleaned with a gauze, later using a fringed silicone thimble that can’t injure the gums.
When a child has grown up, clean with a small brush and water.
Children’s toothpaste containing fluorine can be started from the age of three (concentration 350-500 ppm, Cochrane oral Health Group’s global panel of experts believes that around 1,000 ppm can also be given, but only with advice from a doctor and starting when a child no longer eats toothpaste but knows how to spit it out).
Electric toothbrushes can also be used for older children. They work for those who are lazier at brushing their teeth – all you’ll have to do is apply a toothbrush to your tooth from all directions, and you’ll need to get less shivering with your hand, especially behind your sixth tooth, which is hard to brush off.
Teeth should be cleaned twice a day, all surfaces should be cleaned from the tongue, cheek and biting surface, especially the gum. Direction – comma movement from the gum and across the tooth. You don’t need to be circled because you can traumatize your gums. Learn to clean your trigger too.
At first, the child’s teeth are brushed by his parents. Then, in order for a child to learn to care for his teeth from a young age, he or she is allowed to clean his or her teeth and – his or her parents must clean them! While the child seems to be brushing her teeth, it just looks like it. In fact, he can’t cope with the task with enough quality right up to his school age and even longer. This is shown by the special colouring pills used by hygienists, which paint all the unbrushed plaster on the surfaces of their teeth in bright colour – quite often adults are also surprised that seemingly clean teeth turn out to be dirty because they have been cleaned perfunctory or wrong.
Adult toothpaste should not be used (in which the fluorine concentration will be much too high) and toothpaste should be placed on the brush only the size of a pea, not the entire brush surface as shown in the ads.
Toothbrushes should be changed around every three months as bacteria pile up in it over time.
Not to eat between meals
The more snacks and drinks between meals, the harder it is for saliva to maintain a normal environment in a child’s mouth. Every time something is eaten, the ph levels in your mouth and also in your saliva fall and only recover after about 40-45 minutes. During this time, the child’s teeth are completely vulnerable, as it takes time for new – right saliva to arrive. Does that mean you can’t give a child anything tasty and healthy? No, but preferably it should be at meals. It will be healthier, for example, if the little one slices strawberries straight from the doorway or eats many berries straight away from the bowl rather than one berry at a time, running past the kitchen table throughout the day.
The child should be taught to drink water. Especially at night. Sweetened teas don’t work either. Juices, though healthy, contain a lot of carbohydrates and nutrients, so they can already be likened to food. They must be a supplement or a closing product at the meal, not between them. Natural juices contain fruit acids and natural sugars. Pack juices are worse – they contain sweeteners. But those called nectars or diluted juices are the worst for teeth because they dilute the juice with citric acid or some other acid. As a result, using such diluted juice helps the bacteria by providing the acidic medium with double strength.
It is believed that the longer the child is breastfed, the better it is for the development, health and psyche of the child. However, when the first teeth appear, nocturnal feeding is no longer as good. Why? Because milk has lactose — milk sugar that the bacteria in the baby’s mouth turn into acid that will damage his teeth. So with the first appearance of teeth, nocturnal feeding should be replaced by drinking water, but over the course of the day, if desired, you can keep breastfeeding. Only then should you learn to brush your teeth two or even three times a day.
It’s not just candy. They can also be healthy products – fruits, berries, juices that contain carbohydrates or acids that damage tooth enamel.
The most common scapegoats are biscuits, sweets, breakfast cereals, bananas, dried fruit.
! It should be remembered that after acidic foods and drinks (berries, fruits, juices), it is preferable to rinse your teeth with water, but postpone cleaning for 30 minutes. Otherwise, the slightly peeled enamel of acids is rubbed off.
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