RESUMO
A preventive dental program (PDP) instituted in pregnant women and comprising an educational and a preventive part was evaluated when their children were five and six years of age. Dental caries was examined in sixty-seven mother-child pairs belonging to the program and in sixty-nine control mother-child pairs. In the five-year-old children 87 percent of the PDP group were caries free compared with the 50 percent in the control group. Comparable figures for six-year-old children were 89 percent and 62 percent in the PDP and control group, respectively. The mean dft of the PDP children five and six years of age was 0.4 and 0.2, respectively, versus 1.3 and 1.4 for the control children. The differences in caries-free status and caries prevalence were statistically significant. In conclusion, the preventive dental program which started in pregnant women and continued in the mothers and their children were highly effective for a long-term reduction of dental caries.
Assuntos
Cárie Dentária/prevenção & controle , Educação em Saúde Bucal , Higiene Bucal , Cuidado Pré-Natal , Odontologia Preventiva/métodos , Distribuição de Qui-Quadrado , Criança , Pré-Escolar , Chile , Índice CPO , Feminino , Humanos , Centros de Saúde Materno-Infantil , Mães , Gravidez , Avaliação de Programas e Projetos de Saúde , Estudos Prospectivos , Saliva/microbiologia , Estatísticas não Paramétricas , Streptococcus mutans/isolamento & purificaçãoRESUMO
OBJECTIVE: The medical centre at Almirante Nef Naval Hospital, Vina del Mar, Chile, operates a mother and child preventive dental program (PDP) which includes women from their fourth month of pregnancy and mothers with their offspring. The aim was to evaluate the effectiveness of this prenatal and postnatal prevention program after the first four years. METHODS: The prevalence of early childhood caries of 180 1- to 3.5-year-old children enrolled in the PDP was compared with 180 non-participating children. The control group was randomly selected from the rolls of the healthy child system of of the Valparaiso-San Antonio Health Service and was comparable by age, socio-economic status and level of fluoride in the drinking water (1.0 p.p.m. F) with the PDP group. Clinical caries examinations were conducted by two calibrated examiners using the WHO visual criteria. RESULTS: In the PDP group, 97% of the children were caries free compared with the 77% in the control group. The dft (mean +/- SD) of the PDP children was 0.11 +/- 0.78 versus 0.66 +/- 1.55 for the control children, a difference of 83.3%. The differences between the groups in caries-free status and caries prevalence were both statistically significant (P < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: The preventive dental program was effective in inhibiting caries in pre-school children, even in a population already receiving the benefits of community water fluoridation.
Assuntos
Cárie Dentária/epidemiologia , Cárie Dentária/prevenção & controle , Centros de Saúde Materno-Infantil , Distribuição de Qui-Quadrado , Pré-Escolar , Chile/epidemiologia , Índice CPO , Feminino , Humanos , Lactente , Gravidez , Prevalência , Avaliação de Programas e Projetos de Saúde , Método Simples-Cego , Estatísticas não ParamétricasRESUMO
The purpose of this study was to establish any statistical significance between weight, length and congenital defects in births occurred before and after fluoridation in Valparaiso-Chile. A review was performed over 4.899 controlled births occurred in the Naval Hospital of Valparaíso during both periods (Before = 1983-84 and after = 1987-88). The results were analysed statistically by mean significance test (alpha = 0.05). In contrary to other studies, no difference were determined between births weight mean and birth length mean, by sexes, before and after fluoridation. No congenital defects (Down's syndrome, intraventricular septal defects and cleft lips) were associated with fluoridated water.