Change sees more kids' dental visits

More kids are going to the dentist in Hawke's Bay

Increasing numbers of children are visiting dentists in Hawke's Bay and a local oral health director says the rise is the result of a new approach to early childhood dental decay.

Hawke's Bay District Health Board (DHB) records show the number of children under 12 visiting Hawke's Bay DHB school dental therapists increased steadily each year for the past three years.

In 2012, 15,816 children went to the dentist. In 2013 there were 18,119 and in 2014 there were 20,813.

Hawke's Bay DHB clinical director of oral health Robin Whyman said the increase was almost certainly the result of a new strategies around early childhood dental decay.

Throughout the country children were being enrolled in the community oral health service earlier.

Historically, enrolment was from about 2 years old.

"In terms of managing early childhood dental decay, we really need to be seeing children as their teeth start to erupt into the mouth and that's about 12 months old," said Dr Whyman.

The aim was to have children enrolled by 12 months and continuing to see dentists through their pre-school years.

"The consequence of that is that we've got more visits going on within the community oral health service.

"Pre-school enrolment's important and we would like to see children early and keep them coming along to the oral health service so we can keep on top of stopping the disease from happening."

The initiative was also about talking to parents about what caused dental disease. Dr Whyman said most parents were doing well when it came to taking care of their children's teeth.

However, some parents didn't have all the information about what caused dental decay.

High levels of disease in children were nearly always related to high use of refined sugars.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health's latest health survey found 83.8 per cent of New Zealand children aged 1-14 years visited a dental practitioner in 2014.

That was 2.5 per cent more than in 2013 and 8.1 per cent more than in 2007.

Basic oral health care is free until the age of 18.

The survey found Maori children were 1.6 times more likely to have had a tooth extracted the 12 months than non-Maori, with one in 20 Maori children getting teeth removed due to decay.NZME