Fluoride In Children

I chose to write this current event over the importance of taking care of and maintaining children’s teeth, how fluoride can help keep children’s teeth healthy. And ways to prevent tooth decay, plaque and cavities in young children. I read several different articles and two really stuck out to me. One of them discusses how tooth decay and cavities can prohibit growth in children. And the other gives us some information about fluoride. http://dentistrytoday.com/todays-dental-news/9936-tooth-decay-may-prohibit-growth-in-children http://dentistrytoday.com/todays-dental-news/9933-ada-recommends-earlier-fluoride-distribution-for-children
Parents want to give their young children all of these toothpastes that are candy flavored or have all of these
characters on the tube, like “Oh mom this one is Avengers and bubblegum flavored” so of course they buy it not realizing or really knowing that its actually not really cleaning their teeth very well. They assume that it’s okay and it’s safe because it says “Fluoride free”. And most adults think Fluoride is bad for you to use every day, myself included until I did some research on it a while back. Fluoride is proven to be one of the best ways to prevent cavities.
Cavities are what you get from tooth decay, which is damage to the tooth. Tooth decay affects the outer coating of your tooth, which is what we call enamel and also the inner layer of your tooth which we call dentin. A few things that cause tooth decay are many of the things that we give our children. Such as carbohydrates, cereals, bread, candy, juices, milk and even fruits. These things stay on their teeth and are turned into acid, due to bacteria’s that we all carry in our mouths. With the combination of the food that we are feeding them, the bacteria’s carried in their mouths and their saliva, these all form together and build plaque. Plaque dissolves the enamel of teeth, which causes tiny holes to form in the teeth and those are called cavities. Cavities can prohibit growth in children, such as being underweight and not reaching the height expectations for their age.
• Of the four million children born in the U.S. each year, over half will have cavities before they reach the second grade.
• Over sixteen million U.S. children have tooth decay. That’s 25% of children between the ages of two and five years old. www.childrensdentalgroup.com All of this can be prevented by several things such as, eating healthy, brushing and flossing habits, seeing your dentist at least twice a year and also by using fluoride.
Fluoride is a compound of fluorine. Children usually are not introduced to fluoride until the age of six years old but by that time most children already have cavities caused by tooth decay. By using fluoride toothpastes when infants and toddlers develop their first tooth, we could lessen the chances of our children developing tooth decay and cavities at such an early age.
According to www.pronamel.us ProNamel for kids is anticavity toothpaste specially formulated in collaboration with dentists to strengthen tooth enamel and help protect children’s teeth from acid erosion as well as tooth decay. I chose these articles and this topic because I want to specialize in Pediatrics Dentistry. The articles that I chose to write about and discuss related to Pediatrics Dentistry. Articles like these really stand out to me. I hope that this gives everyone a bit of information on the importance of taking care of our children’s teeth and a few facts about fluoride and how it can help us to prevent our children from having unhealthy teeth at such a young
age.