Abstract
An epidemiological study was carried out to compare the prevalence of dental caries and treatment need of pregnant women and single females in Mosul City, Iraq. A total sample of 666 women (399 pregnant women and 267 single females) selected randomly. Pregnant women were selected from four health care centers, when attending to periodic maternal check up with different stages of pregnancy in Maternal and Child Health Care Center. Single females were selected randomly as control group to compare with pregnant group from health centers. Each group subdivided into 4 subgroups according to the age. Caries experience and the treatment need were diagnosed and recorded according to the criteria suggested by WHO (1997). The results showed a significant difference in the mean Decayed, Missing and Filled Surfaces (DMFS) between pregnant and single females, and the prevalence of dental caries increase with advanced age. The mean DMFS value for pregnant women is 28.78 and for single females 19.09. The study demonstrated that the decay surface component was formed more than the half of DMFS value. Educational programmes to pregnant women through medical and dental centers as well as mass media are suggested to increase the dental awareness and prev-entive behaviour.
Highlights
Oral health is important to general health because of the fact that stomatologic disease affects more than the mouth.[1]. The mouth contains a number of different tissues; among them, the teeth and the periodontal structures which represent two specialized tissues that account for a great importance among mouth conditions, since dental caries and periodontal disease spread widely that almost everybody in the world, every adult has either one or both of these conditions.[2, 3]
The results revealed that the mean DMFS score increased with the age for both pregnant and single females
Its components (DS, Missing Surface (MS), Filling Surface (FS)) could be evaluated separately.[10]. In evaluation of dental caries prevalence among pregnant women compared with single female in Mosul City, the present study found a significant difference in the mean value of DMFS for each age group and total pregnant group than the single female
Summary
Oral health is important to general health because of the fact that stomatologic disease affects more than the mouth.[1] The mouth contains a number of different tissues; among them, the teeth and the periodontal structures which represent two specialized tissues that account for a great importance among mouth conditions, since dental caries and periodontal disease spread widely that almost everybody in the world, every adult has either one or both of these conditions.[2, 3]. Oral environment could show certain changes in women. There are many myths about dental health and pregnancy. There are a lot to think about, during this time, oral health is important during pregnancy and should not be neglected. Pregnancy may be accompanied by an increased dental caries incidence. There is a popular belief that the mother loses “a tooth for every child” and that caries incidence or progress of existing lesion increases during pregnancy or that calcium is withdrawn from the maternal dentition to supply fetal requirements “soft teeth”.(6, 7)
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