It Starts Before They Are Born
November 9, 2011
Research shows that babies are born without any harmful bacteria in their mouths. However, once bacteria colonize in the mouth, children are more prone to cavities in their baby teeth and permanent teeth. How do they get the bacteria? Caregivers.
Most parents don’t know that they can pass harmful bacteria from their mouth to their baby’s mouth. The most critical time is during the child’s first 2 and one-half years of life. Most children are born without a single tooth. Can bacteria passed to children without teeth affect their decay potential for their whole life? According to research the answer is yes.
Here’s a shocker…..If you have a history of poor oral health, including many fillings in your mouth, you are much more likely to transfer these harmful bacteria to children. How? Typically, this takes place through common parental or caregiver behaviors such as sharing utensils or cleaning a baby’s pacifier with your own saliva.
Prevention starts as early as 6 months into a pregnancy. Research shows that expectant mothers who chewed gum containing the sweetener xylitol are much less likely to have decay-causing bacteria in their saliva. So, take-home point number one is, it is essential for expectant parents and caregivers to keep their own mouths healthy. If you reduce the bacterial levels in your own mouth you are not only benefiting yourself but also that of your unborn child. Visiting a dentist regularly, even more often when you are pregnant, improving your homecare, and using products that specifically reduce bacteria, are all essential.
Your baby is born, now what? First, eliminate as many potential ways of transferring saliva to your baby. Do not share utensils or let grandma or grandpa lick a cloth to clean around a baby’s mouth. Wiping your baby’s gums with a clean cloth after meals is also good practice to help reduce bacterial levels.
Once a child starts getting teeth, diet plays a significantly greater role. Minimizing snacks and drinks with fermentable sugars is key. This starts with the bottle. Bottle syndrome, also known as baby bottle tooth decay, occurs when teeth become exposed, at length and frequently, to liquids containing a form of sugar. All liquids that contain sugar can cause bottle syndrome, including breast and cow’s milk (which contain the sugar lactose), formula, fruit juice (which contains the sugar fructose), soda and other sweetened drinks. It is caused by the constant presence of milk, formula, or fruit juice in a child’s mouth during the night, during breastfeeding, during naps, or for extended periods during the day. The liquid pools around the teeth and gums, providing food for the bacteria in plaque. The bacteria produce acid as a byproduct when they consume the sugar. This acid attacks your child’s teeth and causes decay.
When your child feels comfortable with a toothbrush, brush their teeth and gums twice a day with an extra-soft toothbrush. Use a pea-sized amount of toothpaste without fluoride until your child is old enough to spit. If your child doesn’t like toothpaste, it’s fine to brush without it.
Prevention starts before babies are born. It starts with taking care of your own mouth. Visit your dentist regularly.
Room For Improvement
September 2, 2011
Dentists play a key role in screening patients for many disorders relative to nutrition and in providing appropriate referrals into the health care system. Although the importance of integrating diet and nutrition guidance into dental care has been advocated for decades by educators, it continues to be ignored except by a handful of prevention-oriented practitioners.
Many of the world’s most significant health problems are linked to poor dietary practices, including over-nutrition and under-nutrition. Nutrition plays a fundamental role in health, and dental professionals have the opportunity to be a critical link between discovery and wellness.
There is a great deal of evidence linking oral infections, including periodontal disease, nutrition and immunological response. We have clear evidence linking oral disease with adverse pregnancy outcomes, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and stroke. In addition, obesity, which is an epidemic facing our country, is significantly affecting the incidence of diabetes, cardiovascular disease and overall lifespan. We know there are direct connections between these problems and oral disease. What is the role of the dentist? Should the dentist just be a tooth fixer?
As the body of data linking systemic health conditions and oral infection grows, the expanding understanding of the gene-nutrient reaction may result in more profound discoveries. As of now, many dentists fail to fully appreciate that the scientific bridge between oral disease and systemic health is often mediated by diet and nutrition.
The beneficiary of this profound evidence should be you, the dental patient. It should not only be the responsibility of the physician or specialized nutritionist to incorporate this information into practice. The dentist should be playing a key role.
For the most part, the dentist is the only one who examines the mouth. It used to be that the dentist only looked at the teeth and only fixed problems when they arose. By now, most dentists screen for periodontal, or gum, problems as well as oral cancer. The trend is to address these problems earlier than ever before.
People tend to have ingrained in their head that the dentist just looks at the teeth and treatment should be the same as 25 years ago. The fact of the matter is, things change. As I have said in numerous previous columns, there are no two dentists that practice identically. Each individual’s philosophy of care comes from personal experience, review of literature and the type and amount of continuing education taken. One thing we all hope is that our health care provider, dentist or physician, has our best interest in mind. There is room for improvement in the communication between all health care providers.
As science continues and evidence grows, preventative care and treatment will change with the times. It is the responsibility of all health care providers to work towards a more integrated health care system.
Decay – 100% Preventable
June 7, 2011
I spent last week in Boston for the annual meeting of an organization I belong to called the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry (AACD). It was a great meeting. In the four days I was there I took eight classes, went to a Red Sox game, did a Duck Boat tour, and had dinner in the North End. It was great to be a “tourist” in Boston. I learned more about the history of Boston and a great deal of information to be able to provide better care.
There are a wide variety of courses to take at a meeting like this. Most of them are obviously related to cosmetic-based dentistry, but there are other courses offered. Of the eight classes I took, this one particular course struck me the most. It was on current research of dental decay. I know what you are thinking, booooooring; I did too before I took the class. I learned so much and want to share some of the material I learned with you.
Dental caries (decay) is on the rise. It is the #1 disease in children; it has a genetic component and has systemic effects. There are over 19,000 different bacteria that have been found in mouths and every person has about 1,000 different types. Not all of them cause decay and many of them have also been found to grow on artery walls.
Why the increase in decay? Most of it has to do with dietary trends. If you haven’t noticed, our society is getting fat. We snack more, eat more sugar/carbs, drink more soda, have more gastric reflux, take more mouth-drying medications, etc. Dental caries is a pH specific disease. The right bacteria, plus sugar, create acid which breaks down the enamel of the teeth. Add an already acidic environment and it is even worse. It is a 100% preventable disease. The problem is that changing behavior can be very hard to do.
It is time for the dental professional to take a different approach when treating this disease. More focus needs to be shifted to prevention of decay rather just treating it. Filling teeth is treating the result of the disease but does nothing to prevent it. The dentist needs to take a more active role in assessing individual’s risk factors. In the dental world this is referred to as CAMBRA, which stands for Caries Management By Risk Assessment.
Based on assessing an individual’s risk factors such as quality of home care, quality of salivary flow, medication issues, and dietary issues, a caries-preventive strategy can be established. There are many new products on the horizon to help combat and virtually eliminate this disease. However, dentists must take some responsibility and be open to a different management of this disease. They must also be able to motivate people to change habits, which is difficult. The bottom line is that if you want to be decay-free you can be.
For those at higher risk, there are some great products currently available and others to come. Everything from new toothpastes and gels with ions in them to rebuild tooth structure, sprays to neutralize pH and probiotics are on their way. Right now you can use things like sweetener replacement Xylitol, which by itself is cavity-fighting, but also works synergistically with fluoride. Prescription level toothpastes are also available and there is strong research for the topical application of fluoride varnish, the same stuff the kids get, for adults.
The evidence is very clear – this is a 100% preventable disease. Next time you go to the dentist and find out you have a new cavity, stop blaming the dentist or yourself, and ask to get a specific protocol for prevention of this disease based on your specific risk factors.
