Improving oral health in low-income pregnant women with a nurse practitioner-directed oral care program

Abstract

Because adverse pregnancy outcomes have been linked to periodontitis in numerous research studies, pregnant women must be educated about the importance of oral health and the necessity of a check-up. APNs are in an ideal position to educate women and assist them to obtain necessary oral health services.

Integrating Maternal and Children's Oral Health Promotion into Nursing and Midwifery Practice- A Systematic Review

“…Seven home visiting programs [20, 23, 26&27, 36, 37, 38, 39] were reviewed as well whereas one intervention included both home visits and consultations at well-baby clinic. [22] Two studies [21, 38] reported including both urban and rural settings in their recruitment, five [23, 30, 34, 35, 37] were restricted to rural sites and three [25, 26, 28] to urbanized or metropolitan areas. Table 1 …”

“…[24,25,26&27,28,32&33,36,40] Only one program [25] targeted pregnant women while all the other interventions focused on children’s oral health from birth till the age of five. In total 4846 caregivers participated in ten RCTs, 2569 of which were in the intervention arm.…”

“…As revealed from extracted data, the majority of the reviewed interventions targeted vulnerable underserved low-income populations. [20,21,23,25,26&27,29,32&33,35,37,40]…”

“…[21, 22, 29–33, 40] In all the reviewed interventions, oral health education was a basic component provided by adopting various approaches. Some of the participants viewed didactic videos [25, 28, and 37]; Brickhouse et al [23] used oversized models to demonstrate teeth cleansing techniques, other interventions disseminated information via leaflets, pamphlets, or booklets and Kressin et al [29] used role-play exercises to deliver the message. In ten trials oral health kits including toothbrush, paste and feeding cups were given to enrollees in the intervention groups.…”

“…Interventions were implemented either entirely by nursing staff [23, 25, 28, 31, 35, and 38] or in partnership with other non-dental personnel such as pediatricians, nutritionists or vaccination staff. [22, 24, 29, 30, 32&33] No studies integrating oral health promotion into midwifery practice were identified.…”