Why Does my child have so many cavities?
Not a rare disease
Dental cavities remain the most common disease of children and adults. For children it is the most common reason they have a general anesthetic.
But why does your child have so many?
Its a complicated problem. Good EFFECTIVE brushing and eating habits can REDUCE the risk but are not a cure or 100% prevention. There are many uncontrollable risk factors for getting tooth decay. They include your genetics, the hardness of your tooth enamel, the make up of your saliva and how much there is and the nature of the bacteria that makes up the biofilm called plaque that everyone has.
The best strategy is to eliminate the decay and repair the teeth and then institute preventive strategies that have the best chances of being effective such as fluoride varnish applications every 3 months, decreasing the frequency of eating carbohydrates and effective brushing using disclosing dyes every week or two.
Children are requiring treatment for 10 - 20 cavities at a time dental associations are reporting.
To most parents, there are few things more precious than their children's smiles. Unfortunately, those toothy little grins are increasingly afflicted by decay.
The number of preschool children needing treatment for multiple cavities is on the rise, according to The New York Times. "We have had a huge increase in kids going to the operating room," pediatric dentist Jonathan Shenkin, a spokesman for the American Dental Association, told the Times. "We're treating more kids more aggressively earlier."
There many reasons for the problem, including sweet drinks and snacks before bedtime, parents giving children bottled water instead of fluoridated tap water, and a lack of proper dental care for children.
Some parents, for instance, don't insist that their toddlers brush their teeth if the children dislike it. Others mistake the aches associated with dental decay for teething, and still others don't know that infants should see a dentist before their first birthday, even if they don't have many teeth.
Dental surgery for preschool children is that extensive procedures often require the use of general anesthesia, as young patients are unlikely able to sit through them.
In Canada, tooth decay, or early childhood caries, is the most common childhood disease, according to the Canadian Dental Association. And dental surgery, under general anesthesia, is the most common day surgery procedur in the country.
We recommend parents check their toddler's teeth carefully once a month for dull white spots or lines, and look for dark teeth. At any of these signs of tooth decay, they should bring children to the dentist right away. All children under the age of three should have an adult brush their teeth. Between the ages of three and six, adults should supervise.
Younger infants should not be given milk, formula or juice at bedtime, and should see a dentist within six months of the emergence of their first tooth, or by age one.
The consequences are serious. Tooth decay can cause chronic pain, lead to tooth loss and interfere with a child's eating, sleeping and proper growth.