Breastfeeding and its Association with Early Childhood Caries - An Umbrella Review.

OBJECTIVE: To systematically assess systematic reviews and meta-analyses investigating the association of breastfeeding with ECC. STUDY DESIGN: A systematic search was carried out from MEDLINE® (PubMed), EMBASE, the Cochrane Central Database, OVID, Joanna Briggs Institute Database of Systematic Reviews and Implementation Reports and Epistemonikos Databases up to November 2019. Data extraction was carried out by two investigators. ROBIS tool was used for quality assessment of included systematic reviews. RESULTS: Four systematic reviews were found assessing the correlation of breastfeeding with ECC. Findings were grouped into four categories, according to the duration, frequency, pattern, and comparison of feeding habits. Two systematic reviews assessing duration of breastfeeding above the age of 12 months had odds ratios of 1.86 and 1.99, showing positive correlation with ECC while nocturnal breastfeeding showed highest odds ratio of 7.14. Of the four included reviews, three had low risk of bias and one had unclear risk of bias. CONCLUSIONS: Breastfeeding beyond the age of 12 months, accompanied by nocturnal feeding, had a positive association with ECC. Further research is warranted for assessment of diurnal and nocturnal sleep-time breastfeeding habits, together with the role of enamel defects (hypoplasia), and the risk of ECC.

Correlation Between Body Mass Index and Dental Caries Among Three- to 12-Year-Old Schoolchildren in India: A Cross-Sectional Study.

INTRODUCTION:  Diet is a deeply ingrained element of a person's life. Children's dietary habits are a significant contributor to obesity and dental caries. Dental caries during childhood continues to be a significant public health concern, while childhood obesity is increasingly being cited as a major public health problem. This study aimed to assess the correlation between body mass index (BMI) and dental caries in children aged three to 12 years who attended both government and private schools in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. MATERIALS AND METHODS:  We conducted a cross-sectional review of 2200 children aged three to 12 years with clinically recorded dental caries. The World Health Organization diagnostic criteria for BMI percentile was used to evaluate and record dental caries clinically. The Mann-Whitney and the Kruskal-Wallis tests were used for univariate comparisons. RESULTS:  Mean values between the overweight category and underweight category revealed no significant differences. CONCLUSION:  We found no association between BMI-for-age and dental caries in children in both primary and mixed dentition. This relationship should be investigated further by longitudinal studies.