Baby teeth are important too!

When my son started to get teeth i would gentle rub a damp cloth over them before bed. Now he’s 1yr’s old he has his very own toothbrush and low fluoride toothpaste. It can sometimes be hard to brush his teeth so i try my best to make it into a game 🙂

BB: Thanks. I’ll need every ounce of luck I can get to survive the next month or so. =)

beautystar: Absolutely! In fact I think the lack of awareness is a bigger problem, as bad parents are in the minority. It’s just that a lot of parents don’t know the ‘right’ things to do in terms of dental stuff. For example, I had this patient whose mum put her to bed every night with a bottle of milk/breastmilk so she could have some whenever she wanted. End result? Extensive decay in most of her teeth at age THREE. All her upper teeth had to be extracted under general anaesthesia. The sad thing was that her mum didn’t realize that feeding on demand could cause this and she felt so bad. It’s just a horrible situation to be in. Which is why I’m trying to spread awareness in my own little way.

The cases in this article are the extremes in bad parenting, but there definitely does need to be more eductation for parents in infant oral hygene. I would never dream of not brushing my teeth twice a day, yet it never occured to me to start brushing my babies teeth. I just happened to go to a talk on solids and they mentioned it there. He only has his bottom teeth so far so I’m sure (hopefully!) I would have thought of it myself once he got a few more. I think the problem is that in the early years you just don’t take your bub to the dentist, so there is no one to give advice on oral hygene. They really need to get GP’s, paediatritions or early childhood nurses on board to give the info to new parents at the 6 month check up. I now have one of those finger brushes that i use on him, though he thinks its a game and keeps trying to bite my finger!

on a side note (fluoride controversies aside), my PhD supervisor was a dentist and he used to recomend that kids drink cordial rather than soft drink or fruit juice as at least it contains fluoride. Obviously water is best, but he said that if kids will only drink sweet drinks then thats the next best option.

Beauty Bee: So sorry if it seemed as if I was trying to impose my opinions on everyone else. I’m not. I guess five years of dental school has really brainwashed me to a pro-fluoride bias. Doesn’t help that I’m studying for finals so I think I might just be regurgitating all the horrible lecture notes and journal articles I’ve been cramming into my poor brain. So yeah, the fluoride debate isn’t all that cut and dried. =)

Oh, and yup fluoride definitely can be toxic. The stats that I’ve been given is that for a 10kg child, the certain lethal dose of fluoride is around 320mg. That translates to 320ml of regular adult toothpaste. I totally agree that good brushing is more important than fluoride. No plaque, no decay!

Anyways, thank you for reminding me that there’s always another side to the story. Sorry again for being an insufferable know-it-all. Put it down to too much studying. Studying = student + dying. =(

Vainpot you weren’t imposing your opinion as everybody is entitled to one :o) Good luck with your studies, let us know how you go

Cheers
BB :o)

Beauty Bee: So sorry if it seemed as if I was trying to impose my opinions on everyone else. I’m not. I guess five years of dental school has really brainwashed me to a pro-fluoride bias. Doesn’t help that I’m studying for finals so I think I might just be regurgitating all the horrible lecture notes and journal articles I’ve been cramming into my poor brain. So yeah, the fluoride debate isn’t all that cut and dried. =)

Oh, and yup fluoride definitely can be toxic. The stats that I’ve been given is that for a 10kg child, the certain lethal dose of fluoride is around 320mg. That translates to 320ml of regular adult toothpaste. I totally agree that good brushing is more important than fluoride. No plaque, no decay!

Anyways, thank you for reminding me that there’s always another side to the story. Sorry again for being an insufferable know-it-all. Put it down to too much studying. Studying = student + dying. =(

Umm… actually… fluoride isn’t that awful for us. Bad in huuuuuuuge amounts, but in little doses it’s awesome! It hardens teeth so that they’re more resistant to decay. The amount of fluoride in toothpastes isn’t enough to do anyone harm unless they actually _eat_ multiple tubes of toothpaste.

Vainpot – There is huge debate about the flouride, but having read hundred of articles I choose not to use it for myself or my family. Many countries around the world have banned the use of flouride in toothpaste and water supplies. A large mouthful of toothpaste for a toddler can have devastating results and can cause death. Flouride accumulates in the body. Flouride is a by product of fertilisers, not something I aspire to have in my diet. There is a large thread on this topic under dental care if you are interested. Good dental hygiene practices are more important than flouride.

Cheers
BB

Umm… actually… fluoride isn’t that awful for us. Bad in huuuuuuuge amounts, but in little doses it’s awesome! It hardens teeth so that they’re more resistant to decay. The amount of fluoride in toothpastes isn’t enough to do anyone harm unless they actually eat multiple tubes of toothpaste.

I know that fluoride is absolutely awful for us! There is no reason at all why we should be using it AND letting our children use it too.. There’s not much awareness out there about fluoride but I can see more and more herbal/mineral tooth pastes out there which is pretty awesome 🙂

We always brush our daughter’s teeth twice a day, we’ve been doing it since her first tooth came out, I think these days there’s more and more information about it and while there are still parents that don’t realise baby teeth are important, there are a lot of them who are and it’s very encouraging!
We all started using fluoride free tooth pastes and our mouthes have never felt better!

Yay! It’s really great to see there are lots of parents like you guys who are aware of their kids’ oral health. Restores my faith in parenthood. So frustrating seeing kid after kid coming in with massive holes in their teeth which I then have no choice but to extract. I hate it. =(

Btw Beautygeek15, about babies and toothpaste… you might not want to brush your (future) child’s teeth with toothpaste too early. It puts Baby at risk of dental fluorosis. Current Australian Guidelines on this are:

Teeth first come up – 17 months => teeth cleaned by parent, WITHOUT toothpaste.
18 months – 5 years => pea-sized amount of children’s toothpaste (this has less fluoride!), twice a day.
6 years and above => normal adult toothpaste.

Just thought you might like to know. =)

This is sad. I don’t have kids yet but I know G’s sister (we’ll call her L) L’s oldest (2 and a half) has had a toothbrush and toothpaste since he was about 1 or so, L brushes his teeth and then lets him play with the toothbrush (and suck some toothpaste off it lol). I fully intend to be brushing our child’s teeth as soon as they come up. As an adult I have stained teeth due to antibiotics I had when I was a baby (had lots of surgery), they came through stained which is annoying, but I’ll be very vigilant with my kid’s teeth!

For the record, neither G or I have a single cavity, or anything else wrong with our teeth, and we’re 29 and 22 respectively. I have had two root canals but that’s because I fell off a trampoline at school when I was 12 and smashed my two adult front teeth in half. apart from that, no dramas lol.