Baby oral health promotion centre at a tertiary care hospital in India: A successful model for prevention of early childhood caries

Background: Dental caries is the most common chronic disease of the oral cavity. Early childhood caries (ECC) occurs in children less than 71 months of age and can affect the teeth as soon as they erupt. In both developed and developing countries, ECC is a serious public health problem especially for a low socioeconomic group of population. To prevent ECC, children with high risk for caries must be identified at an early age and aggressive strategies must be adopted. In an attempt to achieve a caries-free generation, ‘Baby oral health promotion clinic’ was established.

Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of establishing a baby oral health promotion clinic in reducing the burden of ECC.

Method: A longitudinal cohort design was adopted. The children visiting the paediatric outpatient department (OPD) for immunization were screened and 150 children were recruited for this study by simple random sampling. All parents in the study were given oral health education through a one to one counselling. To reinforce oral health education, oral health pamphlets were also provided. Intraoral examination was conducted at birth and at 3 monthly intervals for a period of five years. On completion of one year, each child was assessed for caries risk using baby oral health promotion centre (BOHPC) caries risk evaluation form.

Results: Among the 150 recruited subjects, 45 were lost to follow up. A total of 105 children were followed up from birth to five years. Out of 105 subjects who were followed up 37% had a risk of developing caries and 1.9% actually developed ECC suggesting that 98% of children were caries-free at the end of 5 year follow-up.

Conclusions: The baby oral health promotion clinic appears to be practical, cost-effective, evidence-based, population-specific, and is successful for the prevention of ECC.

Sri Lanka Journal of Child Health, 2021; 50(1): 56-62