OUR BABIES

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 144, 8 September 1927, Page 5

OUR BABIES

By Hygeia. Published under the auspices of the Royal New Zealand Society for the Health of Women and Children (Plunket Society). “It is wiser to put up a fence at the top of a precipice than to maintain an ambulance at the bottom.”

(Continued.) Now, having shown you the ideal way in which baby’s teeth are made and how they grow, let us look for a moment at the reverse side of the picture, and see the effects of a wrong start in life.

Imagine the mother, who leads a lazy or wholly pleasure seeking life, who eats rich foods without enough of the essential vitamins, who perhaps takes a certain amount of alcohol and smokes o excess, who keeps late hours in stuffy rooms or places of entertainment —her blood is not pure, her baby is not going to have all the rich, pure blood which is needed by the tiny cell workers who are laying down the structures of his body, including the teeth. Poor materials mean poor structures, liable to damage and the inroads of disease.

Imagine the same baby fed as carelessly aft§r as before birth, not taught to chew and bite and gnaw, but fed on soft and pappy food—what is £he commonest result? The soft and pappy food, clinging round the teeth, ferments, and the acids formed surely find out the weak places in the enamel, which was built of poor materials, and they eat in and destroy it. Soon a little black speck appears on the whiteness of the tooth, and decay is far advanced. It burrows in and attacks the ivory under the enamel, and then finally the root and nerve. Then pain begins, and out comes the tooth at the dentist’s. Perhaps the mother says, “Oh, it doesn't matter! It’s only a first tooth.” Put it most emphatically does matter. The tooth under the decayed one which has been extracted comes through crookedly and out of line with the other teeth. But worse than this, the tooth directly above or below the gap left by the extraction is useless — it has no surface on which to grind food, it’s proper work. The same thing happens to a certain extent when a decayed tooth remains in the gum—it is tender and sore—the child avoids biting on that side —and so, in one way or another, the grinding power is impaired or lost. Then, too, one tooth often sets up decay in the next ne, and so the mischief spreads. Nowadays, too, we realise that it is not only the pain and discomfort of the moment, but the after effects of bad teeth which matter. The doctors know that many diseases are caused or made

worse by unhealthy mouths, and one of the first things a doctor asks is, “What are the teeth like?” Safeguarding the Teeth Now let us see what we must do to safeguard and preserve the teeth. The very first thing to do is to educate people; so I hope that if you have learnt anything to-day you will pass it on to other people for the sake of the children. Much is being done by the School Dental Service, and children are being taught at school how important it is to have clean mouths. But very much mischief has been done before school days come, and mothers should watch the little teeth of the toddler with eagle eyes for signs of the small dark specks of decay, and see that these are attended to by a dentist at once. It is utterly wrong to think the first teeth are not worth stopping. The first permanent teeth come through at the back before any of the first teeth are shed. These “six-year molars” are very important, and every care should be taken to preserve them, for the loss of one of these teeth spoils the whole jaw for the future, leading as it does to irregularities, overlapping, and loss of grinding power. Unfortunately these teeth are often mistaken for temporary teeth, and carelessly extracted. There is no excuse for neglected mouths now. For those who cannot afford a private dentist there are school and hospital dental clinics. The best thing is to take the children regularly to the dentist for inspection and overhaul; this always pays by preventing bad holes and future mischief. The Question of Food

The last point we will consider is the food children should have to preserve the strong white teeth their healthy mothers have given them. First of all comes a bone at six months old, and from nine months old hard, ovendried crusts —not sweetened bought rusks; they are thoroughly bad. From 18 months onwards the food should be of a varied and sensible kind. As far as the teeeth are concerned, everything depends on chewing hard, and keeping the teeth clean.

The ancient Maoris had very strong, regular, and perfect teeth, because they ate natural foods, and even chewed a certain very tough kind of fern root. The Indians in North America clean their teeth by chewing a kind of tough, silky flax.

Then look at the cats and dogs. They gnaw and rend at bones, often biting the smaller ones into little pieces. The teeth of all the animals in their natural state are living object-lessons to human beings. But when they are kept in captivity their teeth decay as ours do if they are not given their natural food. You remember the story of the lion in the London Zoo who moped and refused his food, and looked the picture of misery. At last the keeper found the trouble was in the mouth, where a tooth was sore and decayed. This was all due to the unnatural mode of living and feeding. We Must Follow Nature Children, like ptippies, must have food which needs chewing, and if you