By Mark Raines, PhD
We all benefit when families are able to help their young children start out with healthy teeth and gums. This can prevent costly cavities, fillings, extractions, replacements, gum disease, and illness in childhood and later in life.
Brushing teeth, flossing, and being careful with sugar are as important as ever. We are also learning more about the role of stress in oral health. Behind a smile is a brain coping with stress and beneath it are health connections with the rest of the body.
Feeling unsafe, helpless, or unloved can trigger a stress response in brain and body. This may release substances with side-effects that can weaken immunity, inflame gums, and decrease the hardness of teeth. Over time, this can affect children’s ability to fight tooth decay germs. Stress can leave them more vulnerable to cavities and gum disease. It can increase the risk of infection entering the body through the gums.
Preventing stress and soothing it before it becomes long-lasting may be especially important for children who are extra sensitive and reactive. This may be challenging for families stressed by a variety of social and economic challenges. Reducing these stress effects on oral health could achieve significant savings in the billions of dollars spent by parents, insurance, and tax-funded services on oral health problems.
What can we do to protect children from overwhelming or long-lasting stress? First, parents, caregivers, and teachers can help by recognizing what causes children to feel unsafe, helpless, or unappreciated and preventing this where possible. Second, they can provide safe relationships for expressing, listening and talking about stress. A hug or eye-contact can communicate safety and teamwork. Connecting words, feelings and actions helps build brains for coping. Parents can ease children’s experience by sharing it in conversation. This can help children to solve problems that they can (e.g. a frustration). It can help them make sense out of what they can’t solve (e.g. a loss).
Parents can build and renew children’s resilience or “immunity to stress” by providing experiences to help them realistically expect to be safe, capable, lovable, and meaningful. This is like inflating a ball, which can then bounce and be used to play games, have fun, build skills, support teamwork, etc. Sometimes a child’s “resilience ball” can deflate, fail to bounce, and need someone’s help to put more air back into it. Could we check on this as often as brushing teeth?
Parents may not be able to do all this on their own. We may have difficulty with time, transportation, or finances for doctor or dentist visits. We may lack confidence in doing this and value support from others. We may need to learn more about how to teach brushing, flossing, problem-solving, or healthy eating. We may need to remember to prevent passing contagious tooth decay germs to our children’s mouth (e.g. take care of our own oral health, wash a dropped pacifier rather than swishing it in our own saliva, etc.). We may have our own experiences with stress that complicate soothing upset in our children.
Communities, businesses, and organizations can help with access to oral health services and appointment schedules, transportation, child care, etc. Groups and social media can share support about the value of problem-solving stresses and maintaining oral health. Health fair exhibits, posters and brochures can provide information about resilience and health. Across the community, environments and activities can help parents feel less stressed and more available to support children.
It’s enough to make you smile and get resilient smiles back, full of healthy teeth and gums!
This article is supported by Community Dental Farmington, located at 131 Franklin Health Commons St, Farmington, ME. Tel: 207-779-2659; www.communitydentalme.org. Community Dental improves the lives of children and adults in our communities by providing needed, accessible, comprehensive quality oral health care. The Children’s Oral Health Project is funded by the Maine Oral Health Funders.
