Mwanza — PARENTS have been advised not to shake children's first/primary teeth to loosen them as they must fall off by themselves.
Experts warned that shaking in an attempt to force to loosen teeth out, risks disturbing the nerves, leading to serious health complications that might result to death.
"Shaking means extraction force, a situation that might disturb the child's nerves, among other damages," a Dentist at Sekou Toure Mwanza Regional Referral Hospital, Dr Casmir Kiloya, told the 'Daily News' recently.
Usually, primary teeth loose takes place between six to eight years of age, and should be pushed out by new/permanent ones at the bottom, but not the shaking.
Dr Kiloya said that serious damages come in due to infections and swellings that might appear where the first tooth has been manually removed.
"When parents continue to manually treat these complications, the death is obvious," he warned.
He further explained that in baby teeth fall-out process, the new/permanent tooth emerges, wherein absorption takes place to let the first tooth's root get smashed.
Automatically, he said the first tooth gets loosen and eventually pulls out by itself, with no need of any parent's or anyone intervention.
Sometimes, the resorption works slowly due to the long interval between the baby and new teeth, a move that also slows the loose of outgoing teeth.
"As a result, the new tooth emerges adjacent to the first one. That is when we advise the parents to immediately consult the dentists for formal medical procedures, including extraction of the outgoing tooth, professionally, to pave the way for the emerging one," he said.
Experts also give a time frame for the new tooth to adjust in a proper (teeth) line; otherwise, more medical procedures should take-off to make it perfect.
He at the same time urged members of the community to adhere to proper teeth brushing principles, in an effort to protect their oral health.
Among the principles are calm brushing, so as to avoid affecting and removing teeth layers, mostly enamel, dentine and pulp, and eventually affect the nerves.
Enamel removal therefore exposes the dentine that should be always covered, a situation (dentine exposure) that leads into slight pains and sometimes teeth numb.
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If violent teeth brush persists will remove the dentine layer, which is for pulp covering. In the long run, the pulp layer that covers the nerves will also disappear, causing serious teeth pains, on top of more oral health complications.
Dr Kiloya also warns over uses of improper tooth picks, especially those available at Irish potato chips vending points, saying that the sticks lead to gum complications.
Proper toothpicks are available at supermarkets, directed the expert, adding that: "There are also 'dental floss' toothpicks, which is our first recommendation. They are abundantly available in pharmacies and hospitals."
The Sekou Toure officer-in-charge, Dr Bahati Msaki, called up on regular oral health check-ups, saying that the hospital regularly organises the camps for health specialists to set the services close to citizens.
