A focus on dental health in the early years is essential to help tackle these concerning statistics, and more importantly, help establish healthy dental routines and habits from a young age so that all children, regardless of their background, have the best start in life.
As dentists, we always want children to be brushing their teeth twice a day using a fluoride toothpaste and supervised until around the age of eight.
We also recommend that they attend the dentist by the age of one or by the time their first tooth erupts.
This is, of course, in conjunction with healthy eating habits and limiting the frequency and amount of sugar consumption which poses a huge risk of tooth decay.
What’s more, excessive unhealthy food and sugar-sweetened soft drink consumption has been linked to weight gain, as it provides a major and unnecessary source of calories with little or no nutritional value.
Unfortunately, we realise that these recommendations aren’t always possible for a variety of reasons be it compliance of the child and access to resources. This is especially pertinent given the cost-of-living crisis and accessibility to food and drink products high in fats, salts and sugars which are readily available and marketed directly towards children.
However, there is a great opportunity for early years settings to step in here and help provide a certain level of dental health support to children at this crucial stage in their lives.
Bright Little Stars Nursery group has been working closely with us at the Dental Wellness Trust charity since 2021, providing not just oral health education sessions to children, parents and staff, but also bringing our LiveSmart Supervised Toothbrushing Programmes to its children.
The programme is a well-established and evidence-based method of helping to reduce the risks of early childhood dental decay and, in fact, is a key Government recommendation as one of the best ways to address childhood dental disease.
Staff at Bright Little Stars Nursery group are given dental education workshops each year which are provided by the dentists and dental hygienists that volunteer for the Dental Wellness Trust.
They are trained in how to deliver as well as monitor the rollout of the supervised toothbrushing programme to their children, with the provision of free toothbrushes and toothpaste and education materials supplied by the charity.
- If any nursery is interested to find out more about the Dental Wellness Trust LiveSmart Supervised Toothbrushing programmes, then please get in touch here
