Since you’re here, you already know that gum disease is a huge silent epidemic in our global culture.
The sad statistics don’t lie.
If you choose to listen to the ‘official’ story from governmental data, 50% of adults in the US have advanced gum disease. We find a more accurate statistic from ‘in the trenches’ dentists working in people’s mouths every day. These dentists tell us the numbers are upward of 90% of adults have some stage of active gum disease.
So what does this have to do with children?
Well, unfortunately, gum disease isn’t just an ‘adult’ disease. Again, our ‘in the trenches’ dentists tell us that 65% of 15-year-olds have signs of active gum disease.
How did this happen?
How do our children get infected with a chronic bacterial infection at such a young age?
More importantly, what can we parents do to stop this and help educate others?
Sometimes inspiration for articles come from the strangest places.
This week, I found myself on a quick flight to Maui to visit a dentist friend of mine. Once on the plane, I sat back to enjoy one of our favorite activities while in public places… people watching.
While sitting near the back of the plane watching others board, I saw a young father, probably in his early 30s, getting the baggage for his wife and toddler child situated before taking his seat on the plane.
When he turned around, I saw ‘the insult’…
He had his child’s pacifier in his own mouth. Not the handle, but the part that his child sucks on.
I can only assume that he was making sure that he had the pacifier out to help the child handle the flight we were all about to take. The problem is that he had the pacifier in his own mouth, thereby giving the greatest opportunity for gum disease-related microbes (we call them ‘thug bugs’) to travel from his mouth, to the pacifier, to his child’s mouth.
Maybe he felt he was helping the child. After all, there’s research that shows kids whose parents cleaned their pacifier with the parent’s mouth were less at risk for developing allergies. Researchers suggest that this lowered risk was from the child’s immune system being stimulated by the introduction of bacteria from the parent’s mouth.
While this may be true, does that mean that it’s a wise choice to introduce the flora from your mouth to your child’s with such an efficient method as a pacifier? If the parent is confident they have stellar oral health, it surely would be a wonderful gift. But unless you’re pretty sure, we think it wise to avoid this habit.
The damage was done. I wasn’t going to jump up and freak out the young family. Chances are, this wasn’t the first time this young dad had made this poor choice.
So, here I am writing you, hoping that sharing this story with you will help you realize how we unknowingly put the bugs implicated with gum disease into our own children’s mouths.
Please share this story with your loved ones who have young kids in the house so together we can understand how to easily stop spreading such disease-causing organisms.
Gum disease is a communicable disease
First, let’s get clear that specific strains of microbes are implicated in ‘causing’ gum disease. There are a handful of the really obvious, nasty bugs and many more bugs that will join the fight if the thug bugs get the upper hand.
While we realize that gum disease is more complex than ‘just’ what bugs you have in your mouth (something you will be hearing a lot more about from us soon), the fact still remains that if a person has not been infected with any of the bugs implicated with gum disease, they will not develop gum disease.
So, the game is to avoid contamination from these opportunistic ‘thug bugs’.
The 3 main ‘vectors of contamination’…
Here are the three main ways the bugs implicated with gum disease (and tooth decay for that matter) get into our systems. We call them “the 3 Ps”
1. Parents
The story above painfully illustrates one of the many ways we parents infect our children’s mouths. Sharing spoons of food is another very common way. Also, allowing your young child to put their hands in your (probably infected) mouth then allowing them to put their hands right back into their own mouth is another common way these bugs pass from parent to child.
2. Partners
If we were lucky enough to avoid picking up thug bugs from our parents, another common ‘vector or contamination’ is kissing. I’m not talking about the ‘kiss from grandma’ peck. But intimate kissing definitely can provide an excellent opportunity for the thug bugs colonizing one partner’s mouth to migrate to the other person.
We have lost count of the number of times we have heard from a customer, “Yeah, my gums were great until I got married.” We have found oftentimes the person doesn’t realize why their statement is so accurate.
3. Pets
It’s a solid fact that dogs are very, very common carriers of the bugs implicated with gum disease.
Never ever let a dog lick you in the mouth. And please help us educate parents of the risks of allowing the sweet family dog lick a toddler in the face.
Wrapping Up…
So, remember “the 3 Ps” and please share this knowledge with your loved ones. Together we can raise the awareness of how to stop inoculating our children’s mouths with the thug bugs that contribute to gum disease and tooth decay.
And, if you have active periodontal disease and you’d like to learn about a kit that can help you address periodontal-disease-causing microbes from the comfort of your own home, you can read about our HealThy Mouth System here.
What about you? Do you have a “3 Ps”story to share with us? Please post a comment below so we can continue to learn from one another’s experience.
Helpful, Related Resources:
5 Steps to a Healthy Mouth [[FREE video series]]
What’s the Best Order to Brush, Floss and Swish? [article]
How to Stop Bleeding Gums in 3 Easy Steps [article]
How to Create Greater Oral Health for the Whole Family [article]
How to Brush Your Teeth to Reduce Gum Disease [[article & video tutorial]]
HealThy Mouth System [product solution]
Source:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23650304
My one year old seriously chipped his tooth and when I took him to the dentist apparently all four front teeth have cavities 😭 We lead a very healthy life, and I am very confused and frustrated as to why this happened. The Dentist recommended silver diamine fluoride but it stains the teeth horribly and irreversibly. Breastfeeding was faulted. But that doesn’t make any sense to me as my older two are STILL breastfed. And their teeth are great.
I’ve been devouring your website and have found several things I’ve implemented already; is there any way we could speak for a few minutes? Or do you happen to know a dentist in the Dallas/Fort Worth TX area that believes the way you do? I want to protect both my baby’s teeth and his smile if at all possible.
Aloha Kelly,
Thank you for reaching out to us.
We’re so sorry to hear about your precious child’s dental difficulties!
We here at OraWellness aren’t medical or dental professionals, so we can’t treat, diagnose, advise, etc. Instead, what we can do is share information with you to help you become self-empowered on your journey. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s see what information we can share to help. 🙂
Fluoride:
We’re very particular about all of the things we put into or onto our bodies, so we formulated our products without fluoride or other questionable ingredients that are commonly found in oral hygiene products.
Fluorapatite (fluoride) is different than hydroxyapatite (the main remineralizing ingredient in our Shine Remineralizing Tooth Whitening powder). Fluorapatite makes teeth harder than hydroxyapatite (which is why dentists lean toward using it), but there is some correlation between fluoride use and teeth becoming more brittle and prone to cracks.
Here’s a link to an article that explains more of our thoughts on fluoride: Is Fluoride Safe to Use?
Speaking with us:
We have a customer support team available via phone (808.892.3274) and email ([email protected]) Monday – Friday, 8am–7pm EST. Please feel free to reach out to us via phone and/or email and we’ll do our best to help (as non-medical professionals).
Finding a holistic-minded dentist:
I’m sorry, but we don’t have a dentist we can personally recommend in the Dallas/Fort Worth, TX area. However, here’s a list of IAOMT dentists in Texas. Reaching out to some of the dentists on that list who are in your area could potentially help you find the right professional to assist you. Also, you can search for a IAOMT dentists by zip code here.
In case you’d like to check it out, here’s our main article that explains how to find a dentist: Helpful Resources to Find a Qualified Dentist to Assist You.
Also, I encourage you to read our Guide to Safe Dentistry eBook, which explains the questions to ask a dentist to ‘interview’ them and help determine if the dental team is optimally trained to assist you and your family in navigating to greater oral and whole-body health.
A good dentist can be hard to find, but once you find one, they can really be wonderful to work with. Remember that they are here to serve you, and you can choose who you are willing to work with.
Here’s a helpful tip: if you find a holistic practitioner (doctor, chiropractor, nutritionist, etc.) that you like and respect, you can always ask them who their dentist is or if they know of any dentists that they approve of in your area. It can also be helpful to Google reviews on the different holistic practitioners, dentists, and organizations that you encounter so you can see what kinds of experiences other folks have had with them.
Phew! That’s a lot of information. I hope some of it helps.
Please feel free to reach out with any other questions, Kelly; we’re here to help. Aloha! 🙂
Concerned, I have gum disease and accidentally grabbed my toothbrush instead of our Toddler Son’s. I used it for a bit, then realized it. Did I just pass him with Periodontal disease and bad bugs?
Aloha Claudia,
Thanks for stopping by!
While we definitely would not make it a habit to share a toothbrush with anyone, if we’d made this mistake, we wouldn’t be too concerned about this one-time accidental sharing.
Here’s why: while we can’t absolutely guarantee that no periodontal pathogens were passed from your brush to your son’s mouth, the likelihood might have been slim. As we discuss in our article, “3 Easy Ways to Keep Thug Bugs From Growing on Your Toothbrush“, thug bugs like a warm, dark, moist, low-oxygen environment. So, if your toothbrush bristles were dry to begin with (or if you happen to intentionally sanitize your brush when you’re not using it by storing it on a sunny windowsill or in some hydrogen peroxide), then most (if not all) of the thug bugs wouldn’t have been able to survive that environment. So, the toothbrush might have started out a little cleaner than you thought.
On top of that, if you were brushing his teeth with an antimicrobial like our HealThy Mouth Blend or even just organic coconut oil, then that would have killed off many (if not all) of any remaining living thug bugs.
So again, while we can’t absolutely guarantee that no live thug bugs made their way into his mouth from this accidental toothbrush mix up, thankfully, the chances might have been pretty slim.
If you’d like to see what’s going on in your son’s mouth at a microscopic level, a good dentist can help with that. Some dentists are able take a plaque sample from their patient’s mouth, put the sample under a microscope, and show their patient their oral microbiome. That’s a great way to detect any thug bugs early. That way, you can address them before they build their numbers and start wreaking havoc in the mouth.
Here’s an article that can help you find a good dentist: “Helpful resources to find a qualified dentist to assist you“. As you interview potential dental teams over the phone, you can ask them if they do this process of taking plaque samples, putting them under a microscope, and showing patients what’s going on in their mouth at a microscopic level.
We hope that helps!
Aloha!
my 6yo son has a gum recession on only one of his bottom front teeth (permanent). I just noticed it and I am obviously concerned, but also perplexed as to how it could have happened on only one tooth. He has been brushing his own teeth for several months now, and I am pretty certain that he is not just wearing down the gum in this one spot by brushing. He does grind his teeth a bit at night, but I am a light sleeper and it is not too often, it sounds more like a few sharp gnashing noises once in a while. He does eat sweets more than I would like, but no where near as much as his friends. I asked his pediatric dentist and she said it could have occurred from his tooth coming in wrong and said it could be corrected by a gum graft, which sounded scary. Any advice on where it could have come from, will it grow back, and what I can do to prevent it from getting worse? I feel terrible because he is so young. tks.
Aloha Jade,
Thank you for sharing your story with us. I’m sorry to hear about your son’s situation.
I think you are definitely heading in the right direction with your thoughts/comments/questions here.
We learn so much from our dentist friends. The suggestions I share today are truly just me ‘parroting’ their words to us.
The grinding could very definitely be a root cause of the recession. However, given it’s only one tooth, it could very well be the way he brushes his teeth. Which tooth is it? If it’s a ‘canine’ tooth, those teeth are particularly notorious for being brushed too aggressively as they are essentially at the ‘corner’ from the front teeth to the molars. As such, they get more than their share of brush activity.
Also, our friend Dr Al Danenberg has shared with us that many people these days don’t have any bone tissue on the outer side of their teeth. While gum tissue is still high on the tooth, without the underlying bone supporting the gum tissue, the gum is very vulnerable to recession. This could very well be the case for your son.
As you might imagine, we aren’t fans of gum draft surgery. We can’t speak in contradiction to a dentist’s suggestions. What we offer you is to really question how taking tissue from the roof of your son’s mouth and grafting it to the recession spot is supposed to really address the issue. After all, without the underlying bone tissue of the jaw to support the gum tissue to stay put, what is going to stop it from happening again? Nothing really. Thus why this surgical procedure really has never been particularly logical to us.
I would want to know whether his alveolar (jaw) bone is intact or if my sense like Dr Al shared with us is the case for him. Either way, he really wants to learn to brush his teeth with consciousness and not scrub his gum line like he were cleaning a grout line in the bathroom.
We hope this helps Jade. Please do keep us posted of his status.
Blessings to you all!
This is an interesting point, but especially as a breastfeeding mother obsessed with the microbiome, I have to say I choose the benefit of protecting and diversifying my child’s flora over fear of gum disease. As others have commented, a mother putting her child’s pacifier in her mouth means she is exposed to whatever the child is, and necessary antibodies will be created and passed on in her milk. (And even if it hardly cleans it, it makes her feel better about giving it back after falling on the floor!) I think that’s too great a benefit to pass up…plus ain’t nobody got time to find a bathroom and wash that pacifier, nor would I use soap with toxins in it from a public restroom! It’s also my job to pursue oral health for myself and good habits for my children, but this particular issue is the least of my worries.
We are passing on our micro biome, good or bad, to our children. Our children are also getting pathogens, good or bad, from their environment (dirt, pets etc.) This has been happening for generations. It seems to me the real question is how do we populate good mouth flora – truly we are more bacteria etc. that we are our own cells. It’s a symbiotic relationship.
Any thoughts on this??
Aloha Allyson,
Great points here! Thanks for sharing your input.
We completely agree. It’s all about being a good steward of our micro biomes. It’s mostly about being aware of what habits may or may not be supportive to our immune systems. If we can know, for example, that I have active gum disease, then perhaps I should avoid putting my child’s pacifier in my mouth prior to giving it to him/her. Like so often, it really comes back to awareness.
Our article was simply looking to bring attention to this same fact that you highlight here so well. We steward our micro biomes through life and pass on the patterns to future generations.
The game is to be a wise, aware host to optimize the flora that are symbiotic with our health while discouraging the bugs that clearly have no health giving business in our mouths/biomes.
Agreed? 🙂
Oh man!! These are all daily occurrences around here with my spouse and 5 month old. And – this will horrify you – my husband and I frequently accidentally share a toothbrush! I guess our immune systems will thrive at the expense of our gums. Thanks for the great article! It seems inevitable but at least we can keep an eye out for it.
Im just curious… What steps do you recommend if your fodder/young child has already been exposed to these types of things. I have three kids 5 and under and they are all terrible about putting EVERYTHING in their mouths… And have grandparents who (against my asking not to) would share spoons and glasses with them. We also have kittens and dogs around and it’s very hard to keep the kids and their food away from the animals a hundred percent of the time…
My husband and I use the healthy mouth blend daily, but my kids find it a bit to “spicy”. Is there still something I can do?
Aloha Rachel,
Thank you SO much for reaching out to us with your excellent questions.
We agree. It’s almost impossible to avoid exposure at some point. The solution is for the kids to learn to brush using the Bass brushing technique. Given that they learn how to do the technique well, this one simple technique can keep gum disease from progressing. It’s really rather easy to address when it’s early. Only when an adult finds that they have deep gum pockets does it get more challenging to effectively deal with.
I hope this helps Rachel. Thanks again for stopping by to ask!
Hi Rachel, you may find this info helpful. We were just at a pediatric (though conventional) dentist for my 2.5 year old. He said that an adult needs to be brushing their teeth until age 5 or 6. Until kids can write, they don’t have the fine motor control to brush their teeth well. I suspect it may take until age 8 or 9 until the bass technique could be done well. He also said that it’s best to brush a young child’s teeth while laying down, such as on a couch. We’ve been brushing on our son’s changing table, which we still use for putting clothes on for nap and bedtime and brushing teeth. Also toothpaste is not as important as the mechanical disturbance of the bacteria by brushing.
There was a study published about 2 years ago in the journal Pediatrics that found that parents who clean off their child’s pacifier by sucking on it may be reducing their child’s risk of developing allergies. This was in the NY times, news websites, and I think I possibly read it in a parents magazine. That being said, I understand the point you were trying to make above, but the father’s “poor choice” in your mind may have been what he thought was the “best choice” for his child based on evidence-based research.
Aloha Allyson,
Thank you so much for stopping by to offer your input here! Your point is excellent about the articles regarding parent’s ‘inoculating’ their children’s immune systems by cleaning pacifiers with the parent’s saliva. The rub for us is that this study didn’t address the risk that doing so from an mouth infected with periodontal pathogens can also inoculate the child’s mouth with bad bugs too.
I see that my choice to use strong language regarding the father’s ‘poor choice’ may be unjustified.
We plan to write another article on this subject and highlight this study you reference to bring to light the ‘other side’ of the argument.
Thank you again for taking the time to stop by and offer your excellent input!!
While I most definitely agree with you, having had 8 children, it strikes me as a near impossibility to completely avoid that kind of transfer. Even unwittingly, sooner or later it will happen. I also can’t imagine ‘interviewing’ a date about their oral health, and potentially not dating them because of it! 😉
It’s good to know about the transfer of bad bugs though, so precautions can be taken. I’m teaching all of my kids (2 of which have been labeled with early gingivitis) the bass technique with your brushes using the healthy mouth blend. Like any germ, we need to be prepared for a possible encounter.
Thank you for all you do!
Aloha Martha,
Wow, I think we should interview you for how to care for children’s oral health! 8 children?!?
Agreed on the ultimate eventuality of us all becoming exposed to these bad bugs. (and in all seriousness, while I don’t know how a date would feel about answering a line of questions about their oral health, it may be a worthwhile conversation in early dating! 🙂
Good for you for sharing the Bass brushing method with your kids. Knowing this one simple technique can keep them educated how to avoid ever having gum disease advance in their mouths (and bodies). Bottom line, if the bugs can’t hunker down and do their dirty work uninterrupted, they can’t progress the disease. The Bass method effectively disrupts and disorganizes provided that we take our time to really get down into the gum line around all teeth.
Thanks again for sharing your experience and insight with us!