In our previous article, we talked about some foods that are helpful to keeping your children’s teeth strong and healthy. On the flip side, there are many types of food that can cause harm to your children’s oral hygiene.

While crunchy fruits can be extremely helpful in keeping your children’s teeth strong, some of the worst fruits to give your child are highly acidic fruits such as lemons, citrus fruits and tomatoes. Highly acidic foods include fruits such as blackberries, blueberries, cranberries, cherries, grapes, grapefruits, limes, strawberries, raspberries, and pineapple as well as other food such as salad dressing, vinegar, pickles, and fruit jams and jellies. These can gradually wear away at your tooth’s enamel. While these foods do not need to be completely avoided, it is best to eat them in tandem with low acidic foods in order to minimize the effect from the acid.

Another bad choice in the fruit world is dried fruit. Not only does dried fruit have a high sugar content, they can also cling to teeth for several hours, giving bacteria time to form harmful plaque and acid.

Sugar is one of the worst foods for your children’s teeth. In fact, studies have proven that a high intake of sucrose (also known as granulated sugar) is the leading cause of tooth decay. Candy, cookies, pies, cake, and muffins can all have harmful effects on your children’s teeth. The effect of these high sugar foods is compounded by the combination of high sugar foods with high start foods such as breads, potato chips, pretzels, and french fries. Starch combines with an enzyme in your saliva to create an acid bath that can cause high amounts of decay.

By controlling the amount of foods in your child’s diet that are high in acidity, sugar, and starch, you can help make sure that their teeth are receiving the nutrients that they need as well as avoiding the harmful elements that can cause oral health problems such as tooth decay. This combination will help make each trip to the dentist a happy and healthy one.

The old adage teaches us that an apple a day keeps the doctor away. While you don’t want to skip your children’s bi-annual dental check-up, the food that you feed them in between can play a big factor in how those visits will go.

Two of the most important nutrients for strong teeth are calcium and phosphorus. These nutrients help fortify and protect the enamel of the tooth. Phosphorous is found in meat, fish, and eggs. Calcium is found in milk and cheese, fortified soy and rice products, almonds, and dark green, leafy vegetables. It is important to also incorporate plentiful amounts of Vitamin D (found in fatty fish, margarine, milk, and fortified soy and rice produces) in order to help your body absorb the calcium.

Other important nutrients for your children’s teeth include magnesium, vitamin A, and beta-carotene. Magnesium is found in foods such as spinach, bananas, and whole grains. Vitamin A and beta-carotene (which your body turns into Vitamin A) can be found orange colored fruits and vegetables as well as in dark green leafy vegetables.

The best fruits and vegetables are crunchy ones, such as apples, because they contain high water content. This high water content is important due to the fact that the water dilutes the high sugar content of the fruit or vegetable while at the same time stimulating the flow of saliva in order to wash away the food particles.

Washing away of food particles is an important step in keeping your teeth healthy. The best beverages are fluoridated water, milk, and unsweetened tea. Coffee, sweetened tea, soft drinks, lemonade, and fruit juice (even unsweetened fruit juice) can have all adverse effects on teeth because they contain a lot of sugar.

In next week’s article we will take a look at some of the food that can cause damage to your children’s teeth.

The idea of going to your dentist every 6 months was first popularized in a 1950s toothpaste advertising campaign. While the idea was coined in an effort to sell a product, the truth behind the phrase has never faltered.

Oral hygiene is vastly important to your overall health. While at-home care, including adequate brushing and flossing, can help keep your teeth clean, it is not enough to keep your entire mouth healthy. Visiting the dentist twice a year can help you keep your teeth clean and healthy and catch small issues before they become big problems.

A big step to keeping your mouth healthy is preventative care. The first part of a dentist’s visit is an in-depth cleaning, getting rid of the tartar and plaque that gradually builds up on your gums over time. If this plaque and tartar is not regularly removed, it can creep under your gum line and cause problems such as gingivitis (bleeding and tenderness), periodontal disease, and even the loss of teeth.

The second part of a dentist visit is the actual check-up. While the cleaning will help your teeth be more healthy right at that particular moment, regular visits allow the dentists to check the level of your gum and bones as well as spot any potential problems such as tooth decay, chipped teeth, gum disease, or other oral diseases. Since most dental problems develop slowly over long periods of time, regular check ups allow the dentist to catch problems early on and take care of them before they turn into major issues. Preventative care is one of the best ways to avoid painful and expensive procedures.

In order to be the most effective, it is important to start regular dentist visits at an early age. By helping your children develop the habit of going to the dentist every six months, you are helping them lay the foundation for a lifetime of strong, clean, and healthy teeth.

Many children are found sucking their thumbs throughout their childhoods. Like using pacifiers, thumb sucking is often a habit that helps young children find comfort and assurance. However, thumb sucking can cause major dental and speech issues, including the pushing out of teeth, improper alignment, tongue thrusting and lisps, so it is important to help stop this habit as early as possible.

It is important to notice when the thumb sucking happens. Thumb sucking can increase when a child is feeling intense emotions, such as when they are upset or tired, or when the child is bored or zoned out in front of the TV. Thumb sucking often accompanies another habit, such as twirling of the hair or holding a favorite blanket. Thumb sucking is fairly normal up to age 4 and a half. After the age of 5, it can be a sign of a deeper emotional problem.

When trying to break the thumb sucking habit, it is important that you start with gentle reminders. Anger or scolding can backfire and cause increased sucking of thumb due to the related emotions. Whenever possible, engage the child in another activity to distract him or her.

If you do not see a general decrease in the amount of thumb sucking over time, there are other strategies that you can employ. There are several thumb sucking preventative “paints” – a yucky tasting substance that you paint on your child’s finger to discourage them from putting it in their mouth. Other choices include placing items over the thumb that discourage thumb sucking. If the thumb sucking remains constant, consider going to a speech pathologist. Speech pathologists often have good behavioral techniques that can help a child quit. And if nothing else works, a dentist can also create a mouthguard that discourages the placement of the thumb in the mouth.

Above all, it is important to work with the child and continue to give them reassurance throughout the quitting process. This will help take out any anxiety or frustration that may occur.

Fluoride treatments have proven to be some of the best ways to prevent cavities in children. Fluoride is a mineral that is naturally found in all water sources (including lakes, rivers, and oceans) and studies have shown that it helps increase the resistant level of teeth to the damaging acid attacks that are the source of cavities. Fluoride can also help repair early stages of tooth decay.

Fluoride is important in every stage of your child’s development. It helps strengthen the enamel of teeth as they are forming, helping them to grow stronger and more cavity resistant. Once the teeth are fully formed, fluoride continues to help the teeth remain strong by rebuilding the tooth enamel that has weakened and attacking the first signs of tooth decay.

Children can receive fluoride treatments through two main sources. The first is topical fluoride. Topical fluoride is the fluoride that is contained in the treatments you receive in your dentist’s office as well as the fluoride that is contained within dental produces such as toothpaste or mouthwash.

The second type is systemic fluoride. Systemic fluoride is the fluoride that is found in fluoridated water and beverages. The greatest benefit to systemic fluoride is that it combines with your saliva, continuously bathing the teeth in fluoride. The fluoridation of water continues to be a hotly debated topic, with detractors questioning the safety and effectiveness of adding fluoride. However, for the past 60 years, studies have proven that systemic fluoride is not only safe, but also a cost-effective way of protecting the teeth of the public. Most public tap water is fluoridated and many bottled water manufacturers have started to offer fluoridated water as well.

For the greatest benefit, it is important for your children to receive both topical and systemic fluoride. This will help ensure that your children’s teeth are strong and healthy.