Early childhood tooth decay affects the dental and overall health of your children. In severe cases, it damages the structure of your teeth, ultimately causing severe pain and discomfort. If not treated on time, it can also affect the growth of your child. In some of the children, it causes problems in a child’s speech and hampers jaw development.
According to dentists, advanced childhood tooth decay problems require expensive and complicated treatments.
Therefore, to be on the safer side, you need to get your child checked by a dental professional since he starts getting his teeth color faded. In typical cases, you can notice bright brown spots on the teeth, with swollen red gums. When the places become dark, it reveals that your child’s tooth decay has reached an advanced stage.
What are the Causes of Early Childhood Tooth Decay?
Tooth decay occurs in children due to the following reasons:
Poor Oral Hygiene
Most of the parents do not bother to make their child brush regularly. As a result, they start getting plaque and calculus that later decays their teeth. Moreover, other weak hygienic measures like feeding them with the same spoon or in the same cup used by the elders are also a reason to transfer bacteria that causes infection in teeth, ultimately causing them to decay.
Foods
Sweets like candies, chocolate, and caramels are considered the biggest culprits for causing tooth decay in children. You might have observed that the children, who frequently eat up candies and chocolates, get their teeth decayed. Additionally, the food that is high in carbohydrates, juices, sodas, peanut butter, crackers, and potato chips also contribute to early childhood tooth decay.
What kind of foods can parents give to their children?
According to dental experts, it is not the food that affects your child’s dental health; it is the quantity and frequency in which you give a particular food to your child. The excessive use of candies and carbohydrate-containing foods affects your child’s dental health.
However, if you take care of the quantity and frequency of this food, keep your child from tooth decay. Another primary reason for which sticky, sweet, and carbohydrates foods cause tooth decay in children is the inadequate brushing. Usually, when the food particles remain trapped for a longer time, it stimulates bacterial infection that releases acids that erode the surface of your child’s teeth.
How to Prevent Early Childhood Tooth Decay?
A few precautions can help you save your child’s natural pearls. It would be best if you started taking care of proper oral hygiene, as your child gets his first tooth. For babies, you can use clean cotton, damp cloth to clean up their mouth upper and lower side, as well as inside of cheeks.
If your baby has more than one tooth, you can use a soft-bristles small toothbrush to clean their teeth twice a day. Moreover, make a proper schedule of their intake, so that they may not get tooth decaying foods in excessive quantities.