5 Ways To Help Fight Children's Cavities

You look at your calendar and see your child has a dentist appointment in a week.

The feelings of anxiety rush up your spine.

You know the dentist is going to reveal your child has another cavity. You can already feel him scolding your child through his cotton surgical mask for not brushing and flossing enough and the thought is both frustrating and annoying.

To avoid these disheartening interactions with the dentist you need to get rid of tooth decay fast, and the solution might not be as difficult as you think. The secret is understanding how cavities come to be in the first place.

Did you know that cavities are the result of acid eating away at your teeth? Acid breaks down the enamel and minerals that make up your pearly whites and eventually results in cavities: dark, painful holes in the center of your tooth.

You can fend off cavities, however, if you know how to manage that destructive acid. This is the trick to walking your child into that dentist appointment with a cavity-free smile. So here’s the DL on acid and how you can keep it away from your child’s teeth for good.

Know Where Acid Comes From

The primary sources of teeth-destroying acid in your child’s mouth is bacteria and acidic foods and drinks. These are the two sources you need to be aware of to reduce the amount of problematic acid in your child’s mouth and reduce their risk for cavities.

Cavity-causing bacteria eat sugar in food and drinks and turn it into acid. That’s because cavity-causing bacteria consume simple sugars that breakdown from carbohydrates. They then ferment these sugars and the result is a destructive acid that they leave all over your child’s teeth.

Acidic foods and drinks, with or without sugar, can also damage teeth. Although acidic items with sugar are double bad, acid in any form can wreak havoc on your child’s smile. This happens because their mouth’s pH is lowered. The pH scale measures how acidic something is, and when your child’s mouth drops below a pH of 5.5, your teeth start breaking down. That process is called demineralization.

In general, healthy saliva for a child has a pH ranging from 6.8 to 7.4. Anything below a pH of 5.5 equals demineralization and the enamel starts wearing away. However, you can help rebuild your child’s teeth through a process called remineralization. That’s when the minerals that make up your child’s teeth, calcium and phosphate, get redeposited onto their teeth. Their saliva naturally does this and it happens when their mouth is at a pH of 7.5 or higher.

Certain foods and drinks are more acidic than others, and those are the ones your child should stay away from or indulge in very rarely. Foods such as blackberries, chocolate, and bread, and drinks like soda, lemonade, and coffee should be consumed rarely to avoid demineralization.

Frequency of Consumption Matters

Whether your aim is to reduce bacteria or acidic foods, frequency is an important factor that can’t be left out. Every time to your child eats, their pH naturally drops because their body produces acid to digest food. The more often they consume sugars and carbohydrates, the more vulnerable their mouth is to tooth decay.

Besides consuming sugars and carbohydrates less frequently during the day, there are a few things you can do to keep cavities away from your child before your next dental visit. Work these into their everyday routine to clean up their smile.

1. Rinse teeth with water after meals. Water helps wash away leftover food particles and buffers their saliva. Saliva helps remineralize their teeth, and water, especially water with fluoride, can help repair some of the damage done by bacteria and acid.

2. Use xylitol gum. Xylitol gum increases saliva flow, so your child can get even more of those remineralization benefits, but it also reduces their bacteria load. Xylitol tricks bacteria into consuming it because it looks like sugar, but when the bacteria can’t digest xylitol they eventually starve and die off. With xylitol gum, they’re fighting cavities on two fronts.

3. Avoid rinsing with common low pH rinses or alcohol-based mouthwashes. Low pH mouthwash can do more damage than good because it keeps the environment of your child’s mouth at dangerously low pH levels. When their pH is low, it’s easier for bacteria to thrive. And alcohol dries the mouth out and leads to poor saliva flow, so they’re more susceptible to bacteria and acid.

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4. Have them brush every morning and night with an anti-microbial toothbrush. Brushing your child’s teeth everyday is great, but when they use the same toothbrush, they’re just reintroducing that same bacteria to their mouth. An anti-microbial toothbrush reduces bacterial load in their mouth mechanically by scrubbing it away and keeping it that way.

5. Have them use xylitol toothpaste. Most OTC toothpastes contain fluoride because it can help strengthen enamel, but fluoride is not right for everyone. Over-the-counter toothpastes also often contain sweeteners that can be metabolized by cavity-causing bacteria. Make sure you look for toothpastes that are sweetened with xylitol.

Conclusion

If you’re ready to stop dreading dentist visits and start preparing your child for a cavity-free mouth, then you need to introduce xylitol into your child’s daily routine. You can reduce acid-producing bacteria, fight the effects of acid, and repair previous damage.