Affiliation:
1. Post Graduate Studen
2. Professor & Head Of The Department
3. Senior Lecturer
Abstract
Background: Among all the oral diseases, dental caries is the most common chronic disease affecting the children. Early childhood caries is one of
the most severe forms of dental caries affecting the children less than 3 years. Though dental caries is preventable, not much importance has been
given to the preventive aspect of dental caries. This is because of the lack of oral health education. Vertical colonization occurs from caregiver
usually mother to the child. Since mother play an important role in a child's life, their knowledge about child's oral health will have a signicant
impact on the child's oral health status. A proper knowledge for the mothers regarding infant's oral health care will be benecial in reducing the
burden of dental caries in children. Hence a study was conducted to assess mother's knowledge and awareness about infant oral hygiene, problem of
dental caries and teething among mothers of 0-5years old children living in Himachal Pradesh.
Material and methods:
A cross-sectional study was conducted among mothers with a child aged 0 to 5 years of age visiting Department of Pediatrics and Preventive
Dentistry. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire comprising three parts, 1st one pertaining to socio-demographic data, 2nd related to
feeding practices and 3rd one includes knowledge and awareness.
Statistical analysis used: The collected data were tabulated and statistically analyzed using the chi-squared test and p values ≤ .05 indicated
statistically signicant differences.
Results: A total of 98.1% of the mothers were not aware of the rst dental visit. 95.81 % mothers did not agree that night time bottle feeding causes
dental caries and 4.18 % disagreed that nocturnal breastfeeding can cause dental caries in children. A total of 0.9% mothers feel dental check-up is
not necessary when the rst tooth erupt, and 57.7% of mothers started using toothbrush and paste after all the primary teeth erupted.
Conclusions: Many of the socio-demographic and feeding factors were signicantly associated with ECC. It would be appropriate to plan health
education strategies for parents and care takers by inculcating socio-demographic factors. The mother needs to be educated about oral health during
their antenatal checkup.
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