Dads and Dental Health

Fathers play an important role in maintaining their children’s health, and that includes dental health. February is National Children’s Dental Health Month, but any time is a great time for organizations and heathcare providers to encourage dads to think about how they can help their children have healthy smiles.

Babies will start to show off their toothless grins around two months of age. But even before that first tooth pops up, dads can help promote dental health. Encourage dads to check with their local water department about whether the water in your area has fluoride, which is often added to help strengthen growing teeth. If it does, they should find out “how much.” The water department will give them a number of “parts per million” of fluoride. Dads should keep a record of this, because most doctors will start babies on fluoride drops at their 6 months checkup based on this number.

A baby’s first tooth generally erupts around 6 months of age, so educate dads about getting into the routine of cleaning their baby’s gums with water and a soft toothbrush or washcloth. Tell dads that babies don’t need toothpaste for the first year because when they’re this young, they’ll eat the paste and they don’t need the extra fluoride they swallow.

Brushing isn’t the only way dads can help keep their child from getting cavities. Encourage dads to avoid putting their child to sleep with a bottle of formula, milk, juice, or other liquid, using water instead. Liquids in a cup should be offered around 7 months so that a child is “off the bottle” by 12 to 15 months.

Nowadays, there’s a lot of attention paid to healthy snacks, so tell dads that once their child starts to eat solid food, they need to try to minimize consumption of dried fruits, like raisins. These, and other gummy, sweet foods can get stuck between a child’s teeth and cause cavities. The ideal way to remove these sweets from teeth is by flossing, but that won’t happen until a child is much older.

Encourage dads to plan on having their child see the dentist between ages 3 and 4. Most of the time, the dentist will be able to “just look around” to make sure a child’s teeth are healthy. This can be a good first visit and hopefully will set the stage for routine checkups. If families don’t have dental insurance and live in a larger metropolitan area, dads can check with the local children’s hospital or a dental school about the availability of low cost check-ups.

Lastly, if your organization runs health fairs, consider adding “Dads and Dental Health” to the agenda. Your local dentists might offer to donate toothbrushes, floss or stickers to help dads help their kids stay healthy.

To see all of the National Fatherhood Initiative's quarterly newsletters go to https://www.fatherhood.org/ftnewsletter.asp.