Introduction
As parents, it is our duty to ensure that our kids grow up in a healthy fashion. Every parent wants his or her kids to have the best access to everything when it comes to health. This means that we do not compromise when it comes to their necessities, educational needs or medical support.
Health is something that become a major priority for very parent. We take extra care to ensure that the vaccinations are being done on time and that regular visits to the paediatricians are happening for monitoring. However, one aspect that most parents can be guilty of is oral and dental health!
When it comes to caring out the oral health of our kids, we tend to become careless. This leads to a lot of problems, which could have easily been avoided, had we impressed upon them certain healthy oral and dental hygiene habits from a young age.
In this resource article, we speak with some leading dentists at dePacific Dental Group, a leading name in oral health and teeth care in Singapore. We request them to shed some light on how parents can develop healthy oral and dental hygiene habits on their kids.
Why Tooth Decay is something that affects Young Children?
Children and infants consume a lot more sugar than adults. This is because, at a young age, most of their dietary requirements revolve around sugar-based food items.
Mother’s milk is something that is very essential for the healthy growth and development of children. However, it carries a heavy percentage of sugar in it. The same can be said of formula milk or other child processed food items. All this means that at a very early age, the child’s teeth are exposed to a lot of sugar.
Additionally, kids of today love chocolates, candies, soda, juices and more. All these food items contain a very high percentage of processed sugar. You need to understand that as compared to adults, the enamel layering on the teeth of young children ins 50% less.
Sugar consumption keeps chipping away at the enamel layer protection and leads to tooth decay. Tooth decay should be treated as soon as possible, as it can lead to severe pain, consuming food as well as force extraction of a severely decayed teeth.
The Importance of Healthy Teeth for Children
In this section, we are going to look at some reasons why a healthy set of teeth can help a child in different ways-
1. Growth of Healthy Adult Teeth-
Parents tend to ignore the kid’s teeth as they know it will get replaced. However, poor decayed children milk teeth might end up damaging the gums and jaws of the child. This can lead to adult teeth coming up in improper ways that are not straight.
2. Better Speech Development-
If you did not know this, then now you do. A set of healthy teeth is essential for better speech development. Teeth play a very important role in affecting voice modulations inside the mouth. Kids who start speaking clearly early on, tend to have a great set of shiny whites.
3. Improved Nutrition and Health-
A child with problematic teeth will not like eating food. This may compromise on the health and well-being on a child and affect mental and physical development. Kids might not be able to communicate the exact nature of the problems and this is why parents need to pay attention.
4. Better Confidence and Personality-
Taking care of your child’s teeth at an early age would mean that they would grow with a set of healthy teeth. This will act as a major confidence booster when they become adults. Teeth play a very major role in how the world perceives individuals.
5. Prevents Infection and Illnesses-
What might emerge as a small and harmless cut in the gums, might get filled up with abscesses and cause major infections in the gum area. This can easily spread to other parts of the body as well and result in sickness, fever, stomach indigestion, and more.
The Final Word
In case of any problems, parents should immediately get expert medical help from a qualified dentist. Ignoring the oral and dental problems of your children is not something that you should be doing. It can lead to serious complications and affect the health of your child in different ways. If you have any other questions, you would like us to answer, let us know in the comments section below.
