CHILDREN’S TEETH.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4381, 22 February 1922, Page 3

CHILDREN’S TEETH.

STATEMENT BY HEALTH DEPARTMENT. As there would appear to be a-di-versity of opinion among a section of practising dentists, and apparently an appalling amount of ignorance on the part of parents on the above subject, the Health Department has issued the following circular to its offii cers. The circular has been endorsed by the executive of the New Zealand Dental Association: The following. principles shpuld guide all medical and dental officers ! .n advising parents with regard to the treatment of deciduous or first teeth : x (a) It is highly important that every effort should be made to . prevent these teeth from decaying, for tH’4 following reasons: (1) When the body is growing it is necessary that the masticatory apparatus should be in the riiost efficient state. (2) The presence of decaying and suppurating teeth in the mouth at that period of a child’s life must have its maximum evil effects. (b) It is highly important that, in the event of decay having begun in these teeth, an effort should be made by immediate treatment to check it at its earliest stages, as neglect of the first signs of decay leads to infection and depth o'f the pulp/ and the necessity, for extraction. (c) It is highly important, for the health of the child,' that all temporary, teeth in which the pulps have been affected or are dead, and cannot with some degree of certainty be rendered healthy, should be etxarcted, rendered healthy should be extracted, Such teeth may reduce to some extent the mascatory efficiency, and may lead to overcrowding of the permanent teeth. Officers cannot impress too strongly upon parents, in spite pf any opinions expressed to the contrary, that the deciduous teeth are relatively more important to be kept in a state of efficiency and free from disease than the permanent teeth, the necessity for care of which is never denied., Officers should use every means at tneir command to dispel the baneful idea held by many parents, and fostered by some dentists, that the premature extraction of badly-de-cayed deciduous teeth .is not L in the best interests of the. child, and also the fallacy that it is necessary and natural that the first teethi should |lecay, in order to give place to their successors. It must be made clear that the replacement of the deciduous teeth is a physiological process, and not a pathological one.

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