Why are milestones important?
Developmental milestones are significant in our lives and we tend to treasure these moments in life, be it the first time your child smiled, or the first step he/she took, or even the first time your child said “mamma”.
Dental milestones help us track the development of your child’s teeth, (or smile) for the rest of their lives. The dental milestones could be an effective indicator to plan for oral health care. Similar to a vaccination schedule, the dental milestone chart could prompt the parent on their next scheduled dental visit. Oral health protection plan is mandatory among many of the developed countries and is often chartered at the time of pre-school admissions. Unfortunately, in India, we do not take oral health seriously.
We often visit the dentist only when there is a problem, which is too late. Tooth decay problem in India is almost 70-75% prevalent, a problem that can be easily averted if we begin to look at it from a different outlook.
What is tooth decay?
Tooth decay (Dental Caries) is a slowly progressing disease that manifests as a result of calcium and phosphate ion loss from the tooth surface. The reason for this loss is a combination of certain primary factors like tooth surface, bacteria and food.
Tooth: The chewing surfaces of the back teeth have several grooves that are called pits and fissures. These grooves tend to retain the food we eat. In some individuals, these pits and fissures are deep and it becomes difficult to clean the teeth by simple tooth brushing.
Bacteria: Our oral cavity lodges closed 700 different bacterial species that habitat the teeth, tongue and other areas.
Among these bacteria, few species are known to act on the food (fermentation of carbohydrates) lodged in the grooves and produce acid. The acid formed in close proximity to the tooth surface removes the calcium and phosphate ions (enamel demineralization). Thus initiating tooth decay.
Food: The food we eat in the form of carbohydrates is the main source of acid formation on teeth. The worst is the class of fermentable carbohydrates that get readily broken down to acids by bacteria. Added to this, the frequency of eating such carbohydrate also play an important role in tooth decay. All these three factors acting together for a considerable period of time results in cavity formation. If any one of these factors is eliminated, then tooth decay can be effectively avoided.
Scroll down to read more about dental milestones right from a young age:
KSP Team
Parul Gupta
Mansi Zaveri
