Perception of Dental Students towards Infant Oral Health Care and Early Childhood Caries

Early childhood caries can lead to a higher risk of new carious lesions in both primary and permanent dentition, hospitalizations, increased treatment expenditure, risk for delayed physical growth and development, loss of school days with restricted activity, diminished oral health related quality of life and psychological distress to parents. Infant oral health is one of the foundations on which dental care and preventive education must be built to allow a lifetime opportunity free from preventable oral diseases. The purpose of this study was to determine the baseline knowledge and attitude of undergraduate dental students regarding early childhood caries and infant oral health and to propose ways to improve the undergraduate dental curriculum particularly in the prevention of Infant Oral Health diseases. Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out among third and final year students of Government Dental College and Hospital, Srinagar, India in December 2019. Data was collected using a self-structured questionnaire. The questionnaires were entered into excel worksheet for cleaning and imported into Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 21.0 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA) for analysis. Results: About eighty five (85 %) of students had a good knowledge about early childhood caries and infant oral health care. Conclusion: There is still a need to improve the knowledge of graduating dental students through effective strategies. They require adequate training in infant oral health care to be included in their curriculum.

Clinical efficacy of a two-year oral health programme for infants and toddlers in Singapore

INTRODUCTION@#Dental caries, which is prevalent in Singapore preschoolers, is a disease that has a major impact on children's health and places a high cost on the society and health services. Oral health programmes for young children implemented in some parts of the world have been shown to be effective in the prevention of dental caries. We aimed to examine the clinical efficacy of a two-year oral health programme for infants and toddlers in Singapore.@*METHODS@#90 children and their caregivers participated in the programme, and 64 children, who were 24 months older than the intervention group at the initial visit, were recruited as controls in a quasi-experimental study design. We evaluated the presence of severe early childhood caries (SECC) and dmfs in the control group at the initial visit and in the intervention group after the completion of the two-year programme.@*RESULTS@#Some children in the intervention (7.8%) and control (31.3%) groups (p < 0.001) had SECC (difference 23.5%, 95% confidence interval 11%-36%). A higher percentage of children in the intervention group had dmfs = 0 and habits associated with low risk for caries. The odds of SECC in the control group were three times higher than that for the intervention group, and the effect was significant (p = 0.037) after adjustment for other significant risk factors.@*CONCLUSION@#The preventive oral health programme in Singapore was successful in reducing SECC among infants and toddlers when targeted behaviour modifications were implemented.

A new and simple infant assessment table.

Oral examination of an infant forms an important first step toward a lifetime of excellent oral health. Examining an infant during the first visit and the subsequent preventive examination visits may be challenging to dentists and pediatric dentists. There are few concerns regarding the effective oral examination using the traditional “knee-to-knee” position. This paper presents a new, simple infant examination table (INFANTT) to facilitate this examination. This table has many advantages, which includes its stability and simplicity. It is non-threatening and resembles common household furniture. Various modifications of the basic design are also possible to suit the individual dentist’s preferences and dental office needs. Additionally, it is possible to use this INFANTT for performing fluoride varnish applications, taking radiographs of the anterior teeth and extraction of natal, neonatal teeth and traumatized teeth.