Rotting teeth is the most common cause of primary school aged children being admitted to hospital, new figures show
Almost 26,000 primary school children were treated for tooth decay in the past year, making it the most common reason youngsters are admitted to hospital, research shows.
Nearly 500 children aged five to nine were hospitalized due to rotten teeth each week in 2013-14. In some cases dentists are forced to remove all 20 baby teeth from their young patients.
The figures sparked further calls for a crackdown on sugary drinks and fruit juice. The number of hospital admissions for five to nine-year-olds with dental problems increased by more than 3000 in the just three years, from 22,574 in 2010-11 to 25,812 in 2013-14, according to the Health and Social Care Information Centre.
Graham Barnby, honorary vice-president of the British Dental Health Foundation, said: “It all relates to the consumption of sugary, fizzy drinks.” Kathryn Harley, a consultant in paediatric dentistry, said: “We have children who require all 20 of their baby teeth to be extracted. It beggars belief that their diets could produce such a drastic effect.”
She added: “They are going into hospital because they are either presenting with acute problems with pain or because the stage of dental disease, the number of teeth with decay, is such that they need a general anaesthetic.”
Ms Harley said most children need four to eight teeth removed but that having ten to 14 extracted is not uncommon.
She claimed fruit juice should be banned in schools to prevent the problem worsening and pointed the finger at parents who were “inadvertently responsible”.
NHS England also urged parents to take action to protect their childrens’ dental health. “We have some of the lowest rates of tooth decay in the world but these statistics are of course worrying,” the health body said in a statement.
“Parents of young children should discourage them from drinking fizzy drinks as this can lead to tooth decay.” The rising number of young tooth decay patients has also raised questions about whether dentists should carry out more childhood fillings.
Professor Jimmy Steele, head of the dentistry school at Newcastle University, said some dentists are unwilling to carry out filling due to uncertainty about their effectiveness.
They prefer to monitor decay in the baby teeth, he claimed. “Dentists are much less likely nowadays than they used to be to try to fill teeth using conventional measures,” he said.
Tonsillitis is the second most common reason for children of 5 to 9 being admitted to hospital, with 11,522 cases in 2012-13.
Source: The telegraph