Interview with a child’s dentist MD. Camilla Foglarova
Is it right or wrong idea of parents about the first baby teeth that they will get off anyway and the new second ones will grow therefore it is not much happening when the first ones go bad?
Milk teeth meet in a child’s life a variety of functions. They are used to biting and grinding food, it is very important for speaking and social contact of the child (eg. In kindergarten, remember how children can be bad when someone is different). Finally, they hold a place for permanent teeth and they are responsible for the proper growth of the jaws. During childhood, children learn proper hygiene habits and, therefore, regular and adequate care for baby teeth is very important.
What can be considered as the biggest “killer” of children’s teeth?
When we begin to look for the “killer” already in infancy, it is a prolonged nighttime breastfeeding (more than 6 months after the eruption of the first tooth), night follow-on milk – e.g. baby bottle in the crib when the child drinks whenever wakes up. During the night all the people salivate far less, so the protective effect of saliva is much smaller, on top of it small children sleep on their backs and their front teeth dry out, thus the protective effect of saliva disappears completely.
In later years it is the sweetened beverages – juices, sweetened tea – which kids are drinking throughout the day. For the formation of caries is not crucial only the quantity of sweet, but the frequency as well (it is better to eat a biscuit at once, than to have it resting on the table and eat it away all day).
Lately I see the doctor’s office more and more teeth damaged by soft drinks and energy drinks. These drinks are not only sweet but acidic as well. This results in both the formation of caries, and enamel erosion. Due to this breach of enamel the caries arise even in atypical locations, e.g. the tops of cusps.
It’s susceptibility to caries hereditary? Should the parents, who themselves have dental problems, focus more on a good oral hygiene of their children?
It is not. It is only the hygiene habits of parents that “inherit”. On good hygiene should focus the parents who want their children to have healthy teeth. And regardless of whether they themselves have trouble or not. For children, the largest proportion of caries has nutrition and health habits of their parents.
Can the parents (grandparents) really can “transfer” the caries to child by licking pacifiers, spoons, etc.?
Certainly. Tooth decay is an infectious disease, children’s teeth are also far less resilient than the permanent teeth and different is the composition of the oral microbiota.
How to prepare a child to the doctor checks and eventually get rid of fear, or at least minimize the fear?
Before the first visit to the doctor is a good to say to the child what will happen: “we will come there, you will play in the waiting room, look around the surgery, ride a great chair, open your mouth, the doctor will count your teeth, and look with a mirror if there doesn’t live any little worm in the teeth. When you are good, you get a reward and we go home. It is not suitable to use the phrase “Do not worry, it will not hurt” – the child wouldn’t think that something might hurt until you mention this. A great tool are the children’s doctor games or fairy tales – Hurvinek at the dentist, Peppa pig goes to the dentist, Once Upon a Time… Life…
Do you have to sometimes proceed with a general anesthesia in the treatment of children – for example, because the child is simply not able to tolerate the treatment?
I use a treatment in a controlled sedation for fearful, poorly cooperating child or at the multiple caries when I want to protect the child and the parents against the bad experiences. The advantage of this treatment is that once anesthesiologist puts a baby to sleep, I examine everything carefully, do x-ray so I can look for interdental caries and fix everything easily at once. If there are deep caries, there is no problem to pull the tooth. The child does not have an unpleasant experience because it’s a sleep during the whole treatment and the next day can operate without restrictions. The entire procedure is outpatient and the impact on child’s organism is absolutely minimal.
Does it make sense for children to take a variety of supplements that affect the quality denture or special creams and gels?
I recommend to my patients toothpaste with amine fluorides (organic fluorine), which are incorporated into the enamel and thus helps to make it more resistant to caries. Where the risk of caries larger or an incipient caries is found on teeth, the preparations with calcium are suitable, which are applied to the teeth after thorough cleaning. None of these products is not able to replace the correct use of the toothbrush.
What is the proper technique for cleaning teeth in children and it is necessary to rinse your mouth after cleaning?
It is important that each parent find his system that will enable him to clean all the baby teeth so that there wouldn’t remain any plaque. Mostly it is a horizontal technology, because children do not last long and is often a problem to handle them, keep their mouth open long enough. Once children begin to collaborate, we train circling technique that is friendlier to the gums and allows clean teeth just above the gum, so-called cervical area. To check the correctness of plaque purification serve the plaque detectors that dye the place where plaque remains, and which is needed to clean again. Rinsing is pointless, but to spit out the toothpaste is necessary. According to some studies there remain after cleaning the teeth in the mouth more than half of plaque and pathogens. Therefore, the newly recommended double purification: the first focuses on the thorough cleaning of the entire dentition, followed by rinsing and then purified again teeth (equally carefully), but after this cleaning paste only spits.
The interview was made for portal lekari-online.cz. The questions of editors were answered by MDDr. Kamila Foglarová.