Very Involved Parents (VIP)

In recent years, in many well developed as well as developing countries, increased attentions have been focused on child dental health care and prevention. A series of dental health initiatives, campaigns and services have been initiated by the Local Authority with the key objective as to ensure many infants and young children are granted with the best opportunities they could get for their dental health and well being from young.

Apart from the local authorities, parents should be holding the responsibilities of ensuring their young kids are trained on how to brush their teeth effectively from young age because they are the one closest to their kids when they are small. One of the most common causes of early tooth decay is Early Childhood Cavities (ECC).

ECC has been cited as one of the potential risk leading to bad teeth decay during the child development. ECC is caused by the high level of sugar and carbohydrates in the child’s diet, and allowing a child to fall asleep with the bottle that contains any milk or sweet beverages will exaggerate the growth of oral bacteria and resulted in early teeth cavity and gum diseases.

There are many ways to prevent teeth decay and sustain oral health if only more attentions are paid on these area. Some of these useful tips are listed below:

• After every feeding, the inner mouth of your baby or toddler should be cleaned using a clean, warm cloth.
• When the kids reached age two, after every meal, teach him to brush his teeth so that no food remaining are stuck anywhere in the mouth.
• Change the used pacifier and bottle every month to ensure they are always clean and fungal less.
• Encourage your child to discontinue the use of pacifier and bottle as early as age two to avoid possible ECC and oral disease which have victimized a lot of young innocent children every year.
• Expose your children with the early use of fluoride in their daily brushing. It has been tested and recommended for its effectiveness in teeth strengthening and protection against cavity.
• Prevent your children from taking too much sweets and chocolate, or sweet beverages as these are the ‘super agent’ to teeth decay which helps to expedite the progress of decaying among many young children today.
• The American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry had recommended parents to bring their children for their first dental visit around the age of 6 months, where their first tooth started to appear. Thereafter periodic dental visits every 3-6 months are to be carried out consistently to get the right proper care and attention on these young teeth. The objective is to encourage early dental care and treatments among young children for good dental hygiene.

At the same time, local authorities also need to play their parts in enforcing the importance of child dental health care as such:

1. Increasing dental care access is available to those especially from low income families and for rural communities where dental services are hard to obtain. This includes giving necessary dental insurance and treatments to those who are at higher risk of being infected by dental virus or diseases by providing free dental check-ups and treatments consistently to these groups of people.

2. Largely publicized the consequences of bad oral diseases which will jeopardize our health and general well-being. In extreme circumstances, they might even risk our health because dental illness might lead to many other illnesses which may be fatal if it has not being detected in the early stage.

3. Public and private institutions are found to contribute to the society by providing dental subsidies especially to those from medium and low income families. This is a way to encourage this population to seek for early professional dental treatment whenever they have any oral issues before it is too late.