Can be Grandmother as Child’s Daytime Caregiver a Risk Factor for Higher Caries Experience in Early Childhood? A Retrospective Study

Abstract

To investigate the association between child's daytime caring person and risk for higher early childhood caries (ECC) experience. Material and Methods: The sample consisted of all clinical records (census) of children (0-3 years old) attended in a public dental clinic, which contained information about caries experience and child's daytime caring person (mother, grandmother or others). Caries experience was dichotomized as dmft ≤ 2 or dmft >2. Data were analyzed by the chi-square (α = 0.05). Binary logistic regression models were built. Results: From a total of 310 children, 19% of children had the grandmother as daytime caring person. There was no association between child's daytime caring person and caries experience (p=0.32). Logistic regression analysis showed that low daytime caregiver schooling (OR: 5.76 95%CI 1.18-28.18; p=0.02) and child's age (OR: 1.14 95% CI 1.09-1.19; p=0.00) were risk factors, and breastfeeding duration (> 9 months-OR: 0.38 95% CI 0.21-0.68; p=0.00), no nocturnal feeding (OR: 0.50 95% CI 0.27-0.91; p=0.02), and absence of sugar consumption between main meals (OR: 0.50 95% CI 0.28-0.89; p=0.02) were protection factors for ECC. Conclusion: A higher caries experience in early childhood is not associated to child's daytime caring person. On the other hand, the higher caries experience is associated with low caregiver schooling and older children.

Maternal knowledge, Attitude and Possible Risk Factors of Early Childhood Caries among Preschool Children in Mansoura City

“…Adequate knowledge of oral health is the promoting factor for positive attitude of a caregiver. [15][16][17] In the present study, more than half of children shared utensils with others (53.6%). This may happen as a result of mothers' unawareness of the possibility of cariogenic bacteria transmission by such act.…”

Impact of diet on the oral health of children and adolescents: a data mining analysis

“…Although there is evidence in the literature about the role of sugar in the development of dental caries (Chi & Scott, 2019), the impact of sugars and sweets was null in some studies (Evans et al, 2013;Miranda et al, 2013;Mitrakul et al, 2016;Ju, Jamieson & Mejia, 2016;Ribeiro et al, 2017;Mitrakul et al, 2017;Bell et al, 2019;Folayan et al, 2020) or even considered as a protective factor against oral outcomes studied (Downer et al, 2008;Mapengo et al, 2010;Pires et al, 2020; known that its effect on the control of dental caries is a topic, and the role of the fluoride ingested is secondary. Therefore, monitoring the amount of fluoride ingested from infant formula during the first years of life is necessary to avoid dental fluorosis (Buzalaf, 2018).…”

“…Some studies have evaluated breastfed children and observed the risk for dental caries (Tanaka et al, 2013;Özen et al, 2016;Feldens et al, 2017;Stephen et al, 2017). Others demonstrated that breastfeeding was a protective factor against dental caries (Nunes et al, 2014;Elidrissi & Naidoo, 2016;Pires et al, 2020;Devenish et al, 2020), and a minority showed no impact (Dasanayake et al, 2002;Wan et al, 2003;Mohebbi et al, 2008). However, some of these studies did not include possible confounding factors in their analyses, such as the association of breastfeeding with the use of a bottle, night breastfeeding by children who had already undergone food introduction, the consumption of other products, or the lack of oral hygiene habits.…”

“…Consumption time between meals (Nunes et al, 2012;Özen et al, 2016;Llena et al, 2020;Pires et al, 2020) and night dietary habits were considered risk factors for oral outcomes (Tanaka et al, 2013;Özen et al, 2016). As for night dietary habits, most studies reported the consumption of sugary beverages offered in bottle feeding.…”