Important Facts About Dental Decay Experienced By Young Children
If you have a baby or toddler and you want to make sure that their dental health starts and stays healthy, it is a good idea to consult with your pediatric dentist. There are several seemingly innocent acts that your parents or other family members did for their children that are now known to cause problems. Just a few changes can provide your child with a beautiful smile for many years.
Baby Bottle Decay Does Not Always Relate to Baby Bottles
Most parents in the United States are warned against putting babies to bed with a bottle of anything except water and are usually advised that healthy children should be off the bottle by their first birthday. Therefore, it is often surprising to find that children who have had limited access to juice, and whose parents have complied with all the advice from both pediatricians and pediatric dentists, can still develop cavities.
In some cases, it can be traced back to age appropriate bottle feeding and breastfeeding. Many parents have rocked a baby to sleep after dinner or a bath, putting them to bed immediately after, and unfortunately, even the small amount of sugar or nutrients from the final feeding lingers overnight. If your child had several teeth prior to six months and gave up bottles by a year, that is still six months of occasional exposure to sugar overnight, which can be sufficient to inspire dental decay.
If your son or daughter is in daycare, it may also be helpful to ask what their procedures are for teeth cleaning after snacks and meals. You may be surprised to learn that it is not always a priority, even in otherwise exemplary child care facilities.
Consider Pacifiers and Be Sure They Disappear at the Appropriate Time
Pacifiers serve an important need for babies, and although they can be controversial, using them until a child's first birthday is not unusual. However, it is important to understand that it should not be used as a way to get a child to try a new food or juice or consume something they do not like. For example, some parents will dip a pacifier into juice or a new vegetable in order to encourage a baby to eat it, especially if the little one is a picky eater.
Doing so can allow tiny amounts of food or sugary beverages to seep into the pacifier, allowing sugar to leak out later. Obviously, that is an ideal opportunity for that sugar to find a place in your baby's mouth.
In conclusion, your pediatric dentist will have many more pieces of advice and will be able to work with you to encourage dental health. Simply wiping down gums before the first tooth erupts and using a clean, soft washcloth on the first teeth are quick and easy steps to implement.