Dentists are pulling up to 20 baby teeth from children as young as two because of severe tooth decay, according to a leading dentist.
The Vice-President of the Irish Dental Council said she has removed many teeth from young children on more than one occasion.
Dr Catherine Gallagher, an oral surgeon at Cork University’s School of Dentistry, said that while this was at the extreme end of the spectrum, it was not an isolated incident.
“It’s a daily occurrence for us to take eight, nine, ten teeth out of five, six, seven-year-olds. We do a lot of extractions,” he told RTÉ’s Today with Claire Byrne.
“In the vast majority it is caries. We do see some children who need their front teeth removed as a result of trauma… but they are in a very small minority.
“There are either so many teeth decayed, or the children are too young to sit in a dental chair and have treatment, or there are too many teeth to extract that end up needing general anesthesia and multiple extractions. ,” he said.
Dr Gallagher said parents are usually “over the point of shock” but are very upset, adding that children doing this amount of export is a “traumatic experience for everyone involved”.
“Preventable problem”
He said children are sore afterwards and have difficulty eating and it is an “unpleasant and almost entirely preventable problem”.
“We’re not good enough at prevention, we’re not good enough at helping people understand why attrition is happening in the first place,” he said.
“Tooth decay is almost entirely preventable… it’s more or less solely related to how, when and how often we eat sugar.”
Dr Gallagher said that while brushing is helpful, a person “generally speaking” will not get tooth decay if there is no sugar in their diet.
He explained that the bacteria in the mouth live on sugar.
“When they have sugar they produce acid and acid is what attacks our teeth and causes decay,” he said.
“Our saliva within about half an hour of drinking sugar will restore our mouth to a healthy state where it will not be attacked by acid.
“But if we keep adding sugar to that mouth, then the mouth never has a chance to recover and we end up with tooth decay. So the frequency as well as the amount is a real problem.”
Dr Gallagher said many parents are “surprised” when their children get cavities because they don’t realize drinks can be as bad as sweets, adding that fruit juices often contain a lot of sugar.
She said children are upset after teething and it’s “not the ideal environment” to be giving parents advice about sugar.
“Yes, we can have those conversations, but it’s the wrong place and time for them. They need to be done much, much earlier, before this problem arises,” he said.
“Before kids get teeth is the best time to prevent the problem. You have time to avoid developing bad habits in the first place, and it’s much easier not to develop a bad habit than to change it and break it.”
