(HealthDay)—Primary care physicians should begin playing a more prominent role in dental care for children, according to new recommendations from the influential U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.
Specifically, the task force recommended Monday that primary care physicians prescribe oral fluoride supplements, such as drops, tablets or lozenges, for children 6 months and older whose water supply does not have enough fluoride.
“In addition, we recommend that infants and children apply fluoride varnish to their teeth when the baby teeth appear and that primary care physicians can do this,” said task force chair Dr. Michael LeFevre.
“This should be part of everyday childcare,” she added.
LeFevre said that while some primary care physicians already do this, most of them do not. “It’s not something most parents would expect from a well-child visit, and it’s not something most primary care providers include in well-child visits,” she said.
Most doctors mistakenly assume that children are seeing a dentist, LeFevre said. “The problem is that three out of four preschoolers don’t visit the dentist,” he added.
But most children see a primary care doctor, he noted. “So there’s a missed opportunity here for a significant number of children who could benefit, in terms of tooth decay prevention,” he said.
Tooth decay is a major health problem for children, LeFevre noted. “Applying fluoride varnish is something that primary care physicians can do. It’s not complicated, and that’s one way that primary care physicians can help the dentist in terms of tooth decay prevention,” he said.
Fluoride varnish should be applied whether the local water supply has enough fluoride or not, LeFevre said. “Studies show that applying varnish, even when the water is fluoridated, helps prevent tooth decay,” he said.
LeFevre believes parents should ask their primary care doctor to cover their children’s teeth with fluoride.
According to the task force, even very young children can develop tooth decay. Nearly half of children ages 2 to 11 have cavities in their baby teeth, they noted.
The task force is an independent group of experts that researches and makes recommendations on preventive health care. Their latest recommendations, which were published online on May 5 Pediatricsis in accordance with the guidelines issued by the American Dental Association (ADA) last February.
The updated ADA guidelines state that children should begin using fluoride toothpaste as soon as their first tooth erupts. Before that, parents were told to use water to brush the teeth of children under 2 and use a pea-sized amount of toothpaste for children aged 2 to 6.
Dr. Rosie Roldan, director of the Pediatric Dental Center at Miami Children’s Hospital, said these recommendations are good as long as they are part of overall dental care, which includes dental referrals.
Parents seek guidance from their doctor, he noted, but doctors should refer them to a dentist.
“Fluoride just for the sake of it doesn’t do anyone any good. If the pediatrician understands the process of getting the child to the dentist, then fluoride is a good idea,” Roldan said. “This can give the patient some preventative care until they get to the dentist.”
According to the task force, there is not enough evidence to say whether regularly checking children aged 5 and under for tooth decay will improve their future health. Therefore, the working group is not in a position to recommend for or against this audit.
More information:
Visit it US National Library of Medicine for more on children’s oral health.
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Reference: Doctors should administer fluoride treatments to infants: US Task Force (2014, May 6) Retrieved May 31, 2024, from
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