More preschoolers showing up to dentists with 10 cavities or more, says report

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(CBS News) A report from  The New York Times says dentists around the country are seeing an uptick in preschool-age patients with multiple cavities - sometimes more than 10 - that require surgery under anesthia because the decay is so severe.

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"The most severe cases have 12 or 16, which is seen several times a week," Dr. Megann Smiley, a dentist-anesthesiologist at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, told the Times. For these children with severe cases of tooth decay, dentists turn to general anasthesia since it is unlikely a child will sit through drillings on multiple teeth.

The Times reports that there is no "central clearinghouse" for data on the issue, but interviews conducted with dentists and others "suggest that the problem is widespread."

HealthPop spoke to Dr. Stanley Alexander, chair of pediatric dentistry at Tufts University School of Dental Medicine in Boston, who said his dentists are in the operating room at least two mornings a week seeing up to nine preschool-aged patients in need of surgery for cavities. He's seen this problem dating back to when he was a resident in the 1970s.

"It's not new - it's been going on quite a while," Alexander told HealthPop.

What's to blame for such poor dental health in preschoolers? Dentists point the finger towards parents who aren't brushing their kids' teeth twice a day. Some parents told the Times they simply didn't think about the need to brush their tot's teeth until it was too late. Others caved into their crying kids who hated the at-home care.

"Let's say a child is 1 1/2, and the child screams when they get their teeth cleaned," Dr. Jed Best, a pediatric dentist in Manhattan, told the Times. "Some parents say, 'I don't want my little darling to be traumatized.' The metaphor I give them is, 'I'd much rather have a kid cry with a soft toothbrush than when I have to drill a cavity.' "

Other contributing to factors to the preschool problem are age-old problems of snacking on sweets and drinking sugar-loaded juice from sippy cups. According to the Times, one surgeon said one 3-year-old boy arrived for his second round of dental surgery while holding a bottle of soda.

Alexander told HealthPop that parents sometimes give their kids a bottle of juice to help them fall asleep, which is especially problematic since children's enamel is thin to begin with, and the mouth's natural cleaning processes are less active when people sleep. He said another cause of cavities people might not think of is when a child falls asleep while breastfeeding. Breast milk contains natural sugars that can erode teeth, he said.

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Dr. Amr Moursi, chairman of the department of pediatric dentistry at the NYU College of Dentistry in New York City, told HealthPop that some parents believe a common myth that "they're just baby teeth and going to fall out anyway," or a cavity or two is inevitable. Is it true?

"It's really not," Moursi told Healthpop. "It's truly preventable with basic oral health and a minimal amount of effort - children should grow up without a lot of cavities."

What can be done to prevent this ongoing problem?

Alexander said parents need to be better educated on children's dental care and risk factors for decay before they even have kids, by either mom's obstetrician or the family dentist. He also says that kids who are bottlefed with juice - sometimes by a nanny or relative - should be weaned off the sweet stuff by slowly diluting the contents until the child is used to a bottle filled with water.

"It's unfortunate, a lot of this could be prevented."

The National Institutes of Health has more on children's dental health.

[PALFO]

I have a lot tro say about this drilling for dollar business .....
read my blog post on exactly this topic and share you experiences with me!

http://alittledashofsanity.blogspot.com/2012/07/drilling-for-dollars.html

[CLS88]

No mention of vitamin D levels and dental health ?!?!?!


Are you kidding me ????


NOTHING matters more in terms of dental health than circulating vitamin D levels.


Raise, and maintain for life, blood level vitamin D to the healthy, natural range of 50-70 ng/ml.


Every one of these kids with 10 cavities is vitamin D deficient/insufficient...I'll bet the national debt on that.

[Siknik64]

This whole thing doesn't make any sense, why are people putting so much time and effort into dental hygiene for kids this age? Their teeth will just fall out and it makes the whole thing a big waste of time and effort. Preschoolers, really? I don't understand it.

[nyscof]

Sad we've allowed organized dentistry to convince us that all poor kids need is more fluoride. 80% of dentists refuse Medicaid patients. 100 Million Americans don't have dental insurance. Many of those with insurance can't afford dentistry's high out-of-pocket costs.

This country needs to employ Dental Therapists. But organized dentistry is so politically powerful that legislators are afraid to tick them off and cause them to lose their lucrative monopoly by allowing Dental Therapists to work in the US as they have for decades in other first world countries - very successfully.

Also, the mistaken thought that fluoride could prevent tooth decay has made loads of money for industry but have overdosed our children. The CDC says almost half of adolescents have dental fluorosis (discolored teeth) from ingesting too much fluoride. Yet, tooth decay is rampant

Absent from discussion is that children are deficient in vit D and calcium - two nutrients required for healthy teeth. Fluoride is neither a nutrient nor essential for healthy teeth. It is a drug.

Also most juices have a fluoride content, either from the water supply used to make it or from fluoride containing pesticide residues. No American is or ever was fluoride deficient. However, millions are dentist-deficient.There is no science to support the notion that drinking fluoride-free water leads to more tooth decay.

Rotten diets make rotten teeth and no amount of fluoride can change that.

[foodandart]

I've never had insurance, am a working poor American and have since 17, when I got out of High School, managed to pay 100% of every dental visit and even paid for braces in my 20's.

This notion that insurance is needed is rubbish.

People need to put down the soda-pop and all the carb-laden sugary-sweet garbage and NEVER let their children have soda.

I did not drink any until I was approaching my teenage years. Mom just did not buy it. (besides, I preferred chocolate for something sweet.. dark chocolate)

I'm not at all surprised that kids today have mouths full of rot - look at the filth in the average shopping cart - all refined, processed sugars and every generation since the 1950's puts more and more of that junk in their carts and mouths on a daily basis.

Since when did soda become a daily staple on par with bread, eggs and milk?

But God knows, let's make insurance more costly, by all means, rather than take control of the filth we mindlessly stuff in our pie-holes and feed our children.

You're made of cash, right?

[bct13]

Many people will read this tripe and take it at face value. When our dentist told me all the things that our 6 year old needed, I was taken by surprise. He had never had anything but milk or water to drink and brushed under supervision twice a day. His parents have a combined lifetime cavity total of 2 and his water is fluoridated. Oh, by the way, he has no symptoms. I sought a second opinion and another dentist gave us a totally different, but even more expensive "treatment plan." I knew this didn't make sense. I arranged to visit our child's godfather who is a dentist. He did a thorough exam, reviewed the unneeded x-rays we had obtained and announced our child didn't need a thing. He then admitted that dentistry, particularly pediatric dentistry was a scam in the US. We need regulation and supervision of these snake-oil salesmen now. It is all just for money. Don't let these criminals put your kids under general anesthesia for no reason!!

[SUZAMBA]

Read the labels? Juice is not the only beverage that contains large amounts of sugar? The sugar count is amazing. It's like everything else, it's how much and how often, you eat and drink certain items. If you over eat/drink anything, it will have an affect on you.

[MegaProcrastination]

I bought into that whole "give your kids juice, it's GOOD for them!" mantra years and years ago. It was one of the worst things I ever did to them and I've regretted it ever since. Contrary to what many people think, juice is NOT food nor should it be used to get your kids to drink water. All the juice did was exacerbate an underlying tendency toward obesity due to blood sugar problems and it sure didn't do any favors for my youngest one's teeth, which were already ruined by the time he was born because of me drinking water with too much fluoride in it. We've spent a small fortune just so he has something in his mouth that resembles teeth.

[BrendaTNYC]

After I peeled myself off the floor, I began to wonder if there was in fact a silver lining to this story. What if this acts as the wake-up call to stop perpetually feeding toddlers and stop letting them call the shots? It's sad that it would take something so dramatic (and painful) but it's great if it actually works. I natter more here:
http://heresheisboys.com/2012/03/06/brusha-brusha-brusha/