Why do children fall ill when they are teething?

All children do not fall ill when they are teething. However, cases of diarrhoea, fever, and vomiting are noticed when children teeth. It is not necessarily associated with teething. Do visit your paediatrician for advice on taking care of your infant if he/she is ill. You should not consider it normal and ignore professional help.

How important it is to take care of a child’s milk teeth?

People often do not pay much attention to the care of primary teeth thinking that they will soon be replaced by permanent teeth. It is important to understand that the teeth give shape to a child’s face. They are the building blocks of the child’s visuals as well as the foundation for his/her permanent teeth.

What if a child develops cavities in her primary teeth?

You should take care of a child’s primary teeth exactly the same way you would take care of your permanent teeth. Like in an adult’s teeth, poor dental hygiene can lead to the development of cavities in the child’s teeth. Some people tend to think that primary teeth do not need the same treatment as the permanent teeth as they will eventually fall off. However, it is important to understand that primary teeth give way to permanent teeth; if they are infected, they will cause problems for the permanent teeth by damaging the pulp etc.

Ask your dentist for the right treatment for cavities in your child’s teeth. Advice of tooth fillings and extraction should not be ignored.

Click here for a detailed post on dental care in children.

Happy smiling!

What is baby bottle decay?

We often hand over a bottle of milk, juices, or other sweet liquids to babies to keep them from crying. This habit can lead to tooth decay. Take care to wipe your infant’s mouth after she has been fed. Do not let your baby sleep with a bottle of sweet liquid.

Baby bottle decay is also known as early childhood caries or nursing caries. The immediate symptom is pain but its long-term consequences include improper development of permanent teeth. Do not keep the baby exposed to sweet liquids for a long time. As a nursing mother, you should also take care of your own dental health; if you have cavities, the bacteria responsible for it can infect your baby too. It may sound strange but cavities are infectious!

Is thumb-sucking normal?

Thumb-sucking is typically observed in babies up to the age of two. However, you should dissuade your child from it after that age. Some children suck their thumbs or pacifiers even after their fourth birthday. Though it may not cause any problem in all cases, it is better not to let your child suck her thumb when her permanent teeth start appearing.

Do not be too harsh on your child for thumb-sucking; the habit is perfectly normal. Thumb-sucking or chewing a pacifier gives your child a sense of emotional security. Thus, in order to stop her from thumb-sucking or pacifier-chewing, you need to provide her with more emotional support instead of scolding her.

When should I stop breastfeeding?

You should start weaning your child before she turns one. Breastfeeding may become difficult once your baby starts chewing with her new teeth; hence, it is better to start weaning after she develops her first tooth. You can move from breastfeeding to bottle-feeding after 8-10 months. However, every child is different; thus, consult your pediatrician before you decide to wean your child.

When should be my baby’s first visit to the dentist?

Take your child to the dentist when her first tooth appears. Thereafter, in consultation with your dentist, you may take her for check-ups every six months.

When should I contact my doctor or dentist?

• You should immediately contact your doctor if your baby has fever when he is teething.
• You should consult your dentist if you would like to know how much fluoride should the baby intake.
• You should take your child to the dentist if she feels pain in teeth or gums.

Happy smiling!

Did you know that proper formation of teeth leads the way to good facial features and clarity of speech? You must take good care of your baby’s dental health for her future.

Tooth decay can begin from as early as the appearance of the first tooth. In fact, the stage for tooth decay can be set even before a tooth becomes visible. It is important that you take care of the oral hygiene of your child from the first few days of his birth. This post will take you through the basic steps of oral hygiene that will help prevent decay and disease in your child’s mouth.

Day one to six months

• Wipe your baby’s gums with a soft cloth after every feed.
• Clean the baby’s tongue regularly with a soft cloth or a tongue-brush meant for infants.

Six months to a year

The first tooth of your baby will appear somewhere after six months and before her first birthday.

• Start brushing your baby’s when she gets her first tooth.
• Do not let the baby sleep with a bottle containing anything other than water.
• Brush the baby’s teeth before she goes to bed.
• Discontinue breast feeding by the time he is one year old.
• Replace the bottle with the cup; this helps prevent nursing caries.

A year till the appearance of all primary teeth

Once your child gets all her twenty primary teeth, you need to start taking care of her teeth the way you would take care of yours.

• Apart from daily brushing, floss your child’s teeth regularly.
• Give your baby a balanced diet.
• From the appearance of all her primary teeth, take your child to the dentist every six months.
• Start imbibing healthy eating habits in your child.
• Teach your child to rinse her mouth after every meal or snack.

Dental health in children leads to proper jaw growth, helping define the child’s facial features. Tooth decay during childhood can cause several teeth problems in your child’s adult life. Imbibe good dental and healthy eating habits in your child from the very beginning.

Happy smiling!

With most children, teething only causes a massive ammount of drool and a desire to chew on anything that is hard, but in a few cases, it causes mild pain and irritability which makes them upset and may cause more crying. Sometimes, their gums can become swollen and tender. There are several things that you can do to help ease their discomfort.

One of the things that you can do to help is massage the area either with your finger or with a damp cloth. You can also let them chew on a smooth, hard teething ring. Once in a while, teething can cause a fever but in the event of a fever, you can give a Tylenol for the pain or consult your doctor in case its not teething. If you have any questions regardign teething talk to your dentist.

These days its easy to give your children unhealthy things to snack on such as instant puddings and cookies. Even the seemingly healthy snacks like the yoghurt tubes are loaded with sugar and cause cavities in little ones. Here are a few snacks that you can give your children that can keep their gums and teeth healthy.

1. Apple Slices

2. Baby Carrots

3. Almonds

4. Orange Segments

5. Whole Grain Crackers

6. Grapes

7. Cheese cubes (not processed cheese or cheese strings)

8. Celery Sticks

9. Natural Yoghurt

10. Snap Peas

Taking care of your childrens teeth is very important and the job starts before their first teeth even begin to poke up through the gums. But how do you know how to take care of your childrens teeth and what each of the stages are? Here are some basic rules when it comes to keeping your child’s teeth and gums healthy.

When your baby is first born, you need to wipe their gums with a damp cloth twice a day to keep the bacteria from forming. Once the teeth poke out from the gums, you need to start brushing with a soft bristled baby toothbrush with no toothpaste on it. Most dentists recommend that you don’t use toothpaste for your children until they are four or five. As a general rule, you want to keep brushing your child’s teeth until they are able to tie their own shoes. This means that they are mentally ready to properly brush their own teeth.

We all want our best for our children. We want them to grow up healthy and big and stong so we feed them the right diet and make sure they excercise but one of the most commonly neglected health issues with children these days is their dental hygiene.

You might think that dental hygiene is not as important with children because they lose their baby teeth anyways but you could not be more wrong. Their overall oral health when they are younger, determines how healthy their adult teeth will be when they begin to come in at age 6. In fact, good dental hygiene habits should begin before their first baby tooth even pops up by wiping their gums with a soft damp cloth after feedings to help prevent the buildup of bacteria.

Once the teeth begin to appear, you can start to use a soft children’s toothbrush twice a day. When your child reaches preschool age, you should start using toothpaste with their brushing, using the same ammount as the size of a pea. Children tend to swallow most of the toothpaste which is why you don’t want to put too much on the brush. Too much fluorides can be bad for them as well.

Children can get cavities and tooth decay just like adults can and are higher risk if they are born premature or are fairly light weight. They can also be at higher risk if they have any special health care needs or have white spots or brown areas on their teeth. If any of these are the case, you want to make sure that they visit the dentist regularily. To help prevent cavities in children, avoid giving them anything but water to go to sleep with. If your child has a snack or a meal that is particularily sticky or full of sugar, add an extra brushing in and make sure that you get all of that type of stuff off of their teeth as soon as possible.

Treat you childrens teeth as carefully as you treat your own and if you have any questions, make sure that you talk you your dentist. They will be able to tell you everything that you need to know about keeping your child’s teeth as healthy and strong as possible!