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Tooth Care
Tooth Care
Tooth Care...Dental Care and
child´s nutrition.
BabyTooth care
is necessary during all one´s life. A good nutritional education of our children
leads to the control of decayed teeth. It is important to train oneself by
giving your children healthy food.
Kind of Food:
Counterbalancing your child´s diet without an excess of flour, pasta, rice,
bread, sugar, etc. ( carbohydrates and glucids ) would be the right thing.If
your children eat this food and don´t fulfill a good washing of their teeth they
contribute to fermentation of them; opening a gap for the bacteria in the mouth
cavities and therefore producing the decayed teeth with the acids which are
formed.
The food that produce decay in the teeth are the following:
- Simple sugar and the ones that are elaborated with them, like honey,
marmalades, coca cola and candies.
- Complex sugar like bread, pasta, potatoes, rice. They are degraded in
compounds that increase the acids in the mouth cavity.The food that is
maintained for a longer period of time in one´s mouth like sweet and sticky,
chewy candies, honey, sweet liquids are the ones which tend to produce decayed
teeth, that is why you should worry about tooth care.
Frequency and Time:
The more frequently you eat this type of food the higher the probability of
decayed teeth. That is why tooth care is so important.
The food eating between meals is more dangerous than during them. If your child
eats several times a day their teeth will be in contact with the acids during
all the day, and the more the acids attack the more favourable it becomes for
the multiplication of the bacterias that produce decayed teeth.
If your child will have or not decayed teeth will depend on genetic inheritance,
the correct food ( rich in proteins, vitamins and minerals like: calcium,
phosphorous, iron, fluorine ) and the correct washing of their teeth.
Your Task as Parents.
Parents should be informed about the factors that make decay appear. Ever since
your baby is a newborn you should avoid wetting the dummy with sugar or honey
and never clean the dummy with your mouth,
 because
in this way you are transmiting your bacterias. If you give your baby the bottle
never put sugar in the bottle. You should teach your toddlers not to eat between
hours candies or snacks. It is better to eat yoghourt, cheese, etc.which apart
from not helping with decays they have a high quantity of calcium which helps to
stregthen the dental structure.
Nowdays the majority of children go to day nursery or to schools and are many
hours without Mum´s and Dad´s supervision therefore you should make sure, that
at school, the teachers or the people in charge of your child check that
your he/she has washed his/her teeth.
Prevention:
 Mum
and Dad , since the birth of your child the tooth care should be done even
though your baby has no teeth. Clean your baby´s gums with a gauze.To create a
habit you should give your child a tooth-brush with the first tooth that appears.
As from their 2 years of age you incorporate tooth paste which is for infants
and with a concentration of 1000 ppm of fluordine. you just place a small amount
of paste; with you Mum or Dad present when this is done.
When your child is 3 you incorporate fluordine salt to his/her diet.
Between 5 and 12 years of age use tooth-paste with 1500 ppm. and start with
fluordine running liquids for the mouth.
When your child is 6 and his/her first molars appear it would be convenient that
your dentist seals them to protect them from decay.
Visits to the
dentist:
It is
recommended that you should take your baby to the dentist when his/her first
teeth appear ( between 6 and 18 months) so that the odontologist can see how
your child is getting along with his/her teething.
Writen by D.D.M. María Noel Echeverría
D.D.M. Rossana Fumagalli
Montevideo-Uruguay
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