Abstract
Public policy promoting prenatal dental care to provide long-term prevention of early childhood caries (ECC) in offspring would require evidence regarding the ECC risk associated with maternal dental caries during pregnancy. This study evaluated that association using a design capable of assessing temporal relationships and considered a directed acyclic graph to guide the adjustment of pertinent confounders. This retrospective cohort study analyzed data from 158 mother-child dyads attending care at Prachathipat Hospital, Pathum Thani, Thailand. Maternal dental caries data at their first visits to prenatal oral care from February 2012 to May 2017 were traced forwardly to match the oral health data of offspring who visited the hospital from May 2013 to March 2018. Univariable and multivariable fractional logit regression models along with the calculation of average marginal effects revealed that children born to two categories of mothers with 1 to 5 and ≥6 carious teeth during pregnancy would averagely develop 4.5 to 5 and 7.9 to 8.8 more carious teeth per 100 teeth than dental caries would occur in offspring of caries-free mothers. This evidence identified the role of maternal dental caries during pregnancy as a significant clinical risk indicator for ECC and supported the provision of prenatal dental care for mothers to prevent ECC in offspring.
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
