• 9 years ago
• Posted in:02: Oral disease prevention
• 0
• Author: hsin-ying hsieh
• Tags: Children and Parents, community practice, Early childhood caries

Early intervention and timely child-caregiver education are important oral disease prevention and health promotion strategies.^1-3

 New Westminster Family Place is a free drop-in center for low-income families with children under five years old. In my community practice, our team developed and implemented a program focusing on reducing early childhood caries at this facility.

This event has helped with my growth in oral disease prevention. Prior to this, I had never worked together with a family. During the process, I learned how to provide oral health education to children as well as their parents. I also learned the issues parents with young children may face, and we focused our prevention education programs on resolving those issues.

This event was very valuable to me in terms of demonstrating the values of oral disease prevention programs on children and low-income families. These children had poor oral health, which corresponds with the statistics from health Canada in relation to childhood caries (ECC)¹. Prior to our oral health education sessions, many caregivers had several misconceptions on practicing oral self-care for their children and were not aware of the importance of oral health for their children. Our program provided these caregivers the information and advice on oral health risks of their children and the benefits in change. We also encouraged them to establish healthy lifestyle patterns by introducing Canada Health food Guide. Throughout this experience, I witnessed these caregivers’ eagerness for oral health recourses and knowledge, the changes, and the outcome of empowering people with knowledge and skills, and the benefits of oral disease prevention to a child, a family and to a community. This experience expanded my knowledge in practicing dental hygiene with children and their families.

References:

1. int. WHO | Oral health [Internet]. 2012 [cited 22 November 2015]. Available from: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs318/en/
2. Sheiham A. Dental caries affects body weight, growth and quality of life in pre-school children. British Dental Journal. 2006;201(10):625-6.
3. Savage MF, Lee JY, Kotch JB, Vann WF Jr. Early preventive dental visits: effects on subsequent utilization and costs. Pediatrics 2004;114(4):e418-23
4. Summary report on the findings of the oral health component of the Canadian Health Measures Survey 2007-2009 [Internet]. 2010 [cited 20 March 2016]. Available from: http://www.fptdwg.ca/index_htm_files/CHMS-E-summ.pdf