Dental caries is the most chronic widespread disease of childhood. It rapidly decay the milk teeth leading to pain, swelling, unable to chew food, difficulty in speech and affecting psychological confidence of the child. However dental caries is preventable, if taken proper measures: regular visit to pediatric dentist, healthy diet, and professional preventive measures by the dentist like fluoride therapy and pit & fissure sealants.
One of the major reasons of tooth decay in early childhood is lack of knowledge about basic good oral hygiene in childhood and second wrong attitude of parents that these teeth will anyhow fall down as these are primary teeth.
The primary tooth is just not there without any purpose. The primary teeth serves very important purpose: a] it helps in chewing the food till 12 years of age without the primary molars the child will not be able to chew the food properly leading to improper digestion. b] It helps in maintaining the space for the permanent teeth to erupt at its proper position. If in case the primary tooth falls out early or pre maturely it can lead to ectopic eruption of the permanent tooth. c] It helps in speech, there are few sounds which are made with help of primary anterior teeth, if the primary anterior teeth get destroyed by dental caries or trauma then it effect the speech of the child and also lowers the psychological confidence of the child as the peer group teases the child for bad teeth as a result the child stops smiling. Thus, primary teeth have lot of importance and we must try to keep them healthy.
Oral hygiene practices of the child should start right as the first tooth erupt in the oral cavity. The parents should start brushing the teeth of their child right as first tooth erupt in the oral cavity. The first visit of the child to the pediatric dentist should be at or sooner than his or her first birthday. The dentist will not only checkup the oral cavity of the child but also will guide the parents about the feeding practices which play important role in preventing dental caries.
In our society commonly the child is prolonged mother feed or bottle fed or both. Not only there is prolonged years of feeding practices but also 2 years above the child is frequently given mother milk or milk from bottle at the night without any cleaning of teeth afterwards which becomes the major cause for the tooth decay.

Human body is gifted with two defense mechanisms against dental caries: a] physical cleansing action of tongue b] buffering action of saliva. At night both the defense goes negligible neither tongue moves nor there is saliva secreted to substantial amount to counteract the acid produce by the bacteria. Thus it is essential to brush twice daily one in morning and other at night after the last meal or feeding. Even in case it is necessary to give milk to the child then we can give it but don’t forget to clean the tooth surfaces before letting the child go to sleep.

Not only the pediatric dentist takes care of dental caries but also helps in solving mal alignment problem of your child teeth. There are various conditions which can be identified and corrected the pediatric dentist at right age and right time making sure that your child teeth comes in proper alignment.

Talking about some of the conditions are cross bite (the reverse relation between the upper and lower teeth resulting in deficiency of growth of mid face), midline spacing (can be due to many reasons one of them can be due to extra teeth present, high frenum attachment etc.), retro gnathic mandible or maxilla (deficiency in growth of arches which can be treated by myo functional appliances), in case or premature exfoliation of primary teeth pediatric dentist can give space maintainer to maintain the space for permanent tooth so that it erupts in the desired position in the oral cavity.
There are various habits which lead to mal alignment of teeth like mouth breathing, thumb sucking, tongue thrusting, nail biting, lip biting etc. All of these habits can be identified by the pediatric dentist and corrected by the dentist at the right time so that there is no ill effect of these habits on the dental arches.
Thus it becomes important for the parents to visit the pediatric dentist with your child for every six months to see their children with beautiful smiles.

By
Dr. Ankit Srivastava
Pediatric dentist