Oral hygiene of children is very important. Dental health care affects a large of children.
Oral Health Problems:
- Bottle decay
- Thumb sucking
- Tongue thrusting
- Lip Sucking
- Early Tooth Loss
1. Bottle Decay:
Bottle decay is the dental teeth decay caused by the frequent contact of sugary solution or milk with the teeth. It mostly affects the upper front teeth.
Causes:
- Unswallowed milk in the mouth during bedtime.
- Frequent contact of sugary liquids in mouth
- Inadequate fluoride supplements
Prevention:
- Avoid giving bottle filled with milk or sugary juices during bed time
- Encourage to drink from cup
- Clean gums and mouth after feeding
- Making healthy eating habit
If untreated bottle decay it causes pain and baby unable to chew or eat in turn crooked teeth in the later ages.
2. Thumb Sucking:
However, it is a healthy habit of sucking thumb or objects in the infant stage. The main cause for thumb sucking is stress.
Prevention:
- Sucking of thumb in children is mainly to control stress. This can be prevented by knowing the cause.
- Cover the finger with the band aid
- Take out the thumb after your child fall a sleep
- If all these are not work out, Consult your dentist and dental appliances are applied over the mouth which prevents the baby to stop sucking.
If it continuing after 3 years causes to protrude teeth from their position, misalignment of jaw and difficulty in pronouncing some letters.
3. Tongue Thrusting:
Tongue thrusting is similar to thumb sucking. It is the placement of tongue in the wrong position during swallowing that is, attaching the tongue tip to the teeth.
Causes:
- Thumb sucking
- Hereditary factors
- Difficulty in breathing
- Tonsils- Difficulty in swallowing
These are the causes of Tongue thrusting.
Prevention:
- Thumb Thrusting can be prevented by placing a night guard during bed time
- Oral habit training which re-educates the muscle associated with the swallowing of food or liquids.
If it is untreated, leads to the misalignment of teeth and difficulty in pronouncing some words.
4. Lip Sucking:
Lip sucking is the holding of lower lip between the upper and lower front teeth. If it is uncontrolled leads to infection around the lips and redness around the lips. In some children it is a habit in combination with the thumb sucking or tongue thrusting or alone itself.
Prevention:
- Take out the lip from the mouth during sleeping
- Consult Orthodontist and ask about the treatment
5. Early Tooth Loss:
Early tooth loss is the loss of premature tooth before the permanent tooth emerges.
Causes:
- Tooth decay leads to tooth loss
- Lack of enough jaw space
- Injury
Treatment:
- Visit your dentist for treatment of early tooth loss.
- Dentist will place a space maintainer to fill the space created by the tooth loss.
- This can be removed once permanent teeth emerge.
These are the problems, which affects the oral hygiene.