Oral Health: How to Care for Your Child’s Smile
We don’t realize how important our oral health is for our physical well-being. Your mouth,
teeth, and gums can disturb you any day if you compromise with your oral hygiene.
Usually, it is observed that children tend to neglect their oral health, and the most common
problem faced by kids is cavities. To know why our oral health is so important for children, let
us study the connection between our overall health and our oral health.
How are Oral Health and Overall Health related?
The bacteria’s in our mouth are mostly considered harmless, but we forget that our mouth is
the entrance to the digestive and respiratory tract. Therefore, these bacteria’s do travel
through this path and lead to diseases. Children are thereby more prone to such infections
due to their developing immune systems.
Therefore regular brushing and flossing are suggested. If the problems go severe and
medication is also advisable. If you notice inflammation or any unusual symptom, get oral
health checked by a dentist before the infection spreads.
Problems faced by Children
As said, kids do not care about maintaining their oral hygiene inspite they consider it boring
or having a strict duty to be followed. As a repercussion of which they develop oral diseases,
of which cavities are the most common one. Cavities alone can disturb your day-to-day
activities like eating, speaking, playing, and learning.
Poor kids dental hygiene will make your kid sick resulting in missed class, low grades,
irritability, and loss of mental peace which would directly affect the overall health. Looking at
the data we come to realize that 20% of children between the age group of 5 to 11 and 13%
of children of the age group 13 to 19 at least have one tooth decay. Usually, cavities are
seen in the kids of low-income families rather than those with high-income.
How to Maintain a Healthy Smile?
Looking after your child’s oral hygiene is quite a necessity and an important role to play as
parents or caretakers. A good oral hygiene procedure is needed, but this also depends and
varies from kid to kid.
Babies
Brushing is not an option for the soft gums of infants. Therefore, the alternative is to wipe
thor gums with a clean wipe twice a day- first after the morning feed and then at night before
sleep, so that the extra sugar contents get cleaned.
After you see the tiny teeth of your baby, then is the time to switch to brushing. Brushing
should be done twice a day with a soft brush that is not harsh on your gums. Then do the
post-cleaning with plain water.
Children
Brush twice a day with fluoride toothpaste and drink water containing fluoride.
For children younger than six years of age, make sure that they do not harm their gums
while brushing and take only pea-sized toothpaste.
If you wish to maintain the oral hygiene of your child, then the process starts before birth. If
the mother is prone to gum diseases, the health of the child is affected eventually. So, it is
mandatory for the mother as well to brush twice a day and be regular at flossing.
Therefore, if you want a healthy mouth, then maintain the oral hygiene standards well, and
do not be negligent while brushing and avoid all unhealthy habits like eating more sugary
food, eating after brushing at night, improper brushing, and ignoring the bacteria’s on the
tongue.
