Dubai: Children as young as five years in the UAE have a mouthful of dental cavities because of poor parenting and bad oral hygiene, dentists said.
A study done by the Dubai School of Dental Medicine showed that the DMFT (decayed, missing and filled teeth) index among children in Al Ain was the highest in the world.
The study was done by Mawlood Kowash, associate professor at the School of Dental Medicine, last year. In a child with 20 teeth, 10 were found to have decayed, he said.
The professor was speaking on the sidelines of the International Dental Conference and Dental Exhibition that opened here on Tuesday. Shaikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai and UAE Finance Minister, inaugurated the event at the International Convention and Exhibition Centre.
The professor said it was also found that children with dental cavities are usually under-weight and are bullied at school because of their bad teeth.
Expensive
Dr Eman Al Nuaimi, paediatric dentistry resident at the Dubai School, said poor parenting was because adults are unaware of the importance of taking care of teeth. “A number of children are brought for dental work and are put under general anaesthesia. It is expensive and can be prevented,” she said.
Children in the UAE eat sticky sweets and drink sugary fizz drinks that are bad for the teeth, the specialists said.
Dr Eman said it was earlier found that diabetes was one of the risk factors for teeth decay. “Now we know that decayed teeth lead can lead to heart disease and other health problems,” she added.
Dr Kowash said another reason for bad teeth is because new mothers continue using a feeding bottle to put their child to sleep. “Switch from the bottle to a cup before year one,” he said. The reason is that bottle feeding can lead to crooked teeth.
