Sunday, July 5, 2009

Proper Infant Tooth Care Begins With the First Baby Tooth


Infant tooth care begins on the day your child first gets a tooth. As soon as it emerges from the gumline, the tooth can be attacked by plaque and possible tooth decay unless cleaned regularly each day. While it is understandable for you to get excited when you see your child get his or her first tooth, please do not forget to take care of this tooth in the midst of the picture-taking and celebrating. Use a moist gauze pad or washcloth to clean the tooth every day. Do not wait until a child is “old enough to use a toothbrush” because bacteria will not wait

When your child becomes old enough for a toothbrush, use an extra soft toothbrush made specifically for infant tooth care. Use the brush at first without toothpaste until your child can responsibly use toothpaste without swallowing it.

Remember that proper tooth care is more than tooth brushing. Flossing is just as important for young and old alike, and that includes infants and toddlers as well. Floss should be used to gently clean between teeth daily. Be certain to pay close attention to areas where teeth grow very close together. Although you may not see any visible space between teeth, rest assured that microbes can find their way into these spaces and multiply. This is why you have to clean them so thoroughly.

We recommend you use disclosing tablets as part of your daily infant tooth care routine. These tablets are made from a harmless red dye that stains plaque a bright red color. You can readily see it, then, to remove it in its entirety.

Fluoride is another essential ingredient for responsible and proper infant tooth care. However, fluoride is toxic if swallowed and should be used only as directed by your dentist. We ourselves do not prescribe fluoride tablets like some dentists do for young children. We feel there is plenty of fluoride in water and toothpaste and consider tablets to be too much of a risk.

One thing you really need to be on guard against is a condition known as "bottle-mouth syndrome." This is a form of tooth decay brought on by the sugars in milk, formula, and fruit juice. Children often take a bottle to bed or walk around the house drinking from a bottle for long periods of time. Care has to be taken to limit the use of a bottle. Pacifiers, although old-fashioned, still work very effectively as baby bottle substitutes.

Tooth care is much easier to model for young children than to teach them with words. Let your child watch you brush and floss your teeth. It is also a good practice to help your children with brushing and flossing until they are 7-10 years old.

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posted by Dental Expert at 9:31 PM

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