Abstract
BackgroundEarly childhood caries (ECC) is one of the most prevalent chronic diseases among children. The aim of this cross-sectional study was to investigate the association between nocturnal breastfeeding, snacking habits, or other risk factors and ECC in 18- to 23-month-old Japanese children.MethodsStudy subjects were 1675 children aged 18 to 23 months. A self-administered questionnaire was completed by parents or guardians of the children. The survey contents included such things as number of decayed, missing, and filled teeth per child, smokers in the home, nocturnal breastfeeding habit, snack times, kinds of snacks consumed ≥4 days a week, kinds of drinks consumed ≥4 days a week, parents brushing their child’s teeth daily, and the use of fluoride toothpaste. Logistic regression analysis was performed to estimate the odds of ECC.ResultsThe average number of decayed, missing and filled teeth was 0.10. The prevalence of dental caries was 3.3%. Nocturnal breastfeeding habits were reported in 357 subjects (21.3%). After excluding items of multicollinearity, significant associations were observed between ECC and nocturnal breastfeeding, drinking or eating sweets after dinner every day, and the intake of candy, soda and/or isotonic drinks ≥4 days a week.ConclusionsThis study suggests that nocturnal breastfeeding and snacking habits are correlated with ECC.
Highlights
Childhood caries (ECC) is one of the most prevalent chronic diseases among children
The present study found that Early childhood caries (ECC) was significantly associated with nocturnal breastfeeding between the ages of 18 and 23 months
There have been several previous reports[16,19] that the duration and frequency of breastfeeding during the day was not associated with ECC
Summary
Childhood caries (ECC) is one of the most prevalent chronic diseases among children. Several studies have observed that the association between breastfeeding and ECC was insignificant,[31,32,33,34,35,36] and the World Health Organization (WHO) has recommended that children be breastfed until 24 months of age.[37]. In our investigation of the association between detailed snack content and dental caries in 18- to 23-monthold Japanese children in the Tokachi area of Hokkaido Prefecture in 2006, snacking habits were not significantly associated with ECC.[30]. The purpose of the present cross-sectional study was to investigate the association between nocturnal breastfeeding and snacking habits, as well as other risk factors, and ECC in 18- to 23-month-old Japanese children
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