Baby's oral hygiene

Care for baby gum and teeth

• Informative pamphlet about baby's oral health (from Singapore Natl Healthcare group polyclinics) suggest that we should clean baby's gum daily using a wet muslin cloth or special tooth tissues (available in pharmacy and online shops such as ebay and Amazon). An example is shown below.

Toothtissue for wiping baby's gum. The substrate/"tissue" is not known (could be plant fiber, e.g.bamboo?), the ingredient is as follows: water, aloe vera juice, glycerin/glycerol, hydrated silica, xylitol (sugar alcohol as sweetener), levulinate (pungent "whiskey" flavouring),phytate (as preservative), xantham gum (as thickening),sorbate (as preservative). Refer to http://toothtissues.com/.

• When baby's teeth are out, we should brush them using soft bristle toothbrush. 

• When baby is able to spit, use a small amount fluoride toothpaste on the teeth. Brushing frequency is twice daily.

Bad habit to avoid

• Avoid giving milk or sweetened drunk right before bed.
• Avoid giving pacifier to baby (if possible). If teething, we can give them teething ring to chew on. Prolonged use of pacifier has been associated with misaligned front teeth.
• Don't introduce too many sugary diet to baby, e.g. raisins are high in sugar content too.

When to visit the dentist?
First visit is ideally when baby turns 1 yo (as suggested by the booklet), whereas Natl Dental Centre Singapore (NDCS) suggest between 6 to 12 mo (see "Pediatric dentistry - your child's first visit to the dentist", NDCS).

My notes

• First tooth (start circa 6 mo to 12 mo or more).
• By 3 yo, all primary (or milk) teeth are out.

Challenges

• My girl likes to keep food in her mouth for a longest time before swallowing. She spends almost 1 hour finishing her food. The last mouthful will be a challenge for her to swallow. In order to prevent prolonging food in her mouth, I would ask her to spit out the last mouthful and ask her to rinse her mouth later. This will minimize tooth decay.
• Ordinary children toothbrush is not small enough for most toddlers. Stuffing the toothbrush into our child's mouth often induce her to vomit. I wish there is smaller toothbrush catered for children. Read an article about "choosing the right toothbrush for your child" by Westvalleysmiles. In short, picking the right toothbrush requires soft and proper bristle, dimension of toothbrush that fits in your child's mouth, and easy grip.

Tips

• Salt water gargle. Tooth caries (or decay) is caused by Streptococcus infection (transmission is usually from mother to child, especially when the former's oral hygiene is poor). In order to minimize tooth decay, a salt water gargle has been shown to possess antiseptic property, but it will be a challenge to convince your child to gargle the solution.
• Gargle and swallow sufficient amount of water after each meal. Instead of giving our child flavoured drinks, we encourage her to drink plenty of water.
• Cheese, milk and calcium helps to build strong bones and teeth. Plenty of healthy sun exposure helps to produce vitamin D that helps calcium absorption.

Pediatric dentist registered with Google Maps  

There are several clinics available and from the map, they are scattered in the south and east coast region.

Note that I wanted to add dentists registered in Streetdirectory but the site popped up irritating register your email. To get to business, just click on "Are you lost".

I couldn't get a hit by entering "pediatric dentist/dental/dentistry".