Dental Health Training

[Polly2]

I went on some dental health training this week - very interesting! We got shown some horrific slides of children as young as 2 with black stumps for teeth
Apparantly Wales is one of the worst countries for not looking after our children's teeth

Anyway I learnt a few things I thought I would share

Always use a dry toothbrush

It is better to brush first thing in the morning before breakfast (apparantly unless you leave it for half hour after eating you are rubbing the acid into your teeth otherwise!)

Children do not have the dexterity to brush their own teeth until they can tie their own shoe laces or write their name clearly (thought that was a good one to share with parents)

Milk and water are the only safe drinks for children. Even sugar free drinks have sweetener in which although does not cause decay causes abrasion - rubs enamel away.

It is better to have 4 sugar bursts a day (4 meals then) than many snacks because of the acidity in your mouth.

Raisins are bad for teeth as they are sticky - she was reasonable though and said better to give raisins than sweetys!

She recommended open cups as soon as children were able and she showed us this fab little collapsable cup for travel.

There were some nursery staff there and they were wittering on about how they have tooth cleaning sessions every day - BUT she said they were only really fluoride coating teeth as the children were too young to brush properly and that childminders were in a better position to properly brush!! Another pro for cm's

[Pipsqueak]

thank you for sharing that very interesting information

[shazsull]

i used to work as a dental nurse and the state of some poor kids teeth mainly due to the bottle thats why a lot of kids are scared of the dentist as their first experience isnt a good one ,my own nephew by 18 months had green teeth it was awful i had him one day age 3 and he was crying with tooth ache i had my 2 small ones so could do nothing his mum took him to the dentist had abcesses i got a box of sweets for having him!!!!
i can also spot a dummy sucker a mile off!

[Helen Dempster]

Even I learnt something from this - thank you! I thought raisins were one of the tooth-friendly kind of sweet treats!! And I always wet my toothbrush and DS's before brushing!! Won't be doing that anymore...

[Optimalstar]

I had dental health training a few weeks ago. She didn't mention using a dry toothbrush.

She was going on about flouride. We have flouride in our water so not such a biggy but for neighbouring towns it was because they don't have flouride in their water.

As for raisins she claimed the problem with raisins was their sugar content. All fruit contains sugsr, as most people will know, but she said it wasn't a problem as the sugar wasn't released until digestion however if fruit was processed in anyway(as with raisins- they're dried out) then the sugars are released at that point. Thus the sugar in raisins hits the teeth before digestion.

My poor dd used to live on raisins to avoid sweets. She is 2 next week and I'm ashamed to say has a cavity already . Dentist lectured me on it, must have had sweets, sugary drinks etc. I mentioned she eats a lot of acidic fruit (which the woman from dental course said could cause probs) he said it wouldn't have been that.

Sam x

[blue bear]

Interesting comment about not having dexterity to clean teeth until they can do laces and write their name, my 14 year old can do neither.