Dental health for children

Abstract

Good dental health is essential to a child’s general health and well-being. This article addresses several aspects of child oral health from birth to around the time they enter school. More specifically this article will review the stages of normal dental development, dental decay and how to prevent it and some of the common non-nutritive oral habits such as thumb sucking and dummy use. At the time of birth most children will have all their primary teeth already present but the first primary or baby tooth usually erupts from 4 months of age. The timing and order of eruption of the teeth is primarily genetically determined and can vary among children with girls usually ahead of boys in dental eruption. Most children will have all their 20 primary teeth by the age of three. Primary teeth are generally whiter and smaller than permanent teeth. It is very important to have healthy primary teeth not only for aesthetic reasons, but also because this is a good predictor of a healthy adult dentition. Furthermore maintenance of intact primary teeth preserves space in the dental arch, supports good speech development and promotes overall quality of life. Wide variation in timing of eruption exists for the primary dentition. The first teeth can start to appear any time from 4 months onwards but some infants are very delayed. In general there is little to worry about if the primary teeth do not come through over the first 12 – 18 months. There are a few quite rare conditions (syndromes) that may be associated with missing teeth but most children will develop their teeth at some point. Of more concern is when the teeth erupt in a sporadic fashion, the order of eruption being more important that the actual timing. Should there be a concern regarding the time or pattern of eruption of the primary dentition then a referral to a specialist paediatric dentist would be appropriate. Such a specialist will decide on the need for further investigations.