Oral Health Promotion in Infants
through Dental Pass
Prof. Wen-Sheng Rong
This project is a pilot running in Dailan, Liaonoing Province, China, aiming to improve the oral health of young children and their
mothers through integrating free oral health check-ups, treatment and education programmes into the existing maternal and infant
healthcare system.
The project aims to reduce the incidence of caries among children by distributing free toothpaste and toothbrushes to mothers,
teaching mothers the importance of good oral health habits for themselves and their children, offering dental passes and oral health
information leaflets to new mothers, demonstrating proper toothbrushing technique for mothers, and instructing mothers to clean the
new erupted teeth of their children.
The project targets young mothers and their infants, from 3 to 6 months, volunteering to participate in the
programme. Mothers receive a free dental check up in community hospitals, with dentists and physicians,
thanks to a “Dental Pass” distributed by the project stakeholders (NDAs dentists and representatives). Upon
this appointment, mothers are given instructions and education on oral health and teeth cleaning method for
infants. A clinical examination, including the number of erupted teeth of children and tooth status of the children,
was then conducted by trained dentists at different intervals to monitor whether the programme improves oral
health. A face-to-face interview was conducted by a trained interviewer to collection oral health care information
of new mothers.
The baseline data (T0) showed that the new mothers had
limited oral health knowledge, and the proportion of using
fluoride toothpaste was lower. Oral health promotion
should be implemented among the new mothers.
The success of the project relied
on the training and calibration of
the oral health examiners. This
phase was completed before
August 2011.
Then, the recruitment of
volunteering mothers and children
pairs started in August 2011.
Totally, 710 pairs of mother-child
were recruited. 62.4% of mothers
brushed their teeth twice a day and
4.6% of them brushed their teeth
less than once a day.
We are planning to collect a second set of data (T1), by
examining the same group of mothers and children, by the
end of 2012.
Only 19.2% of mothers
knew that fluoride
toothpaste was helpful to
their teeth, and 33.7% of
them were using fluoride
toothpastes.
The comparison of both
data sets is willing to
demonstrate whether oral
health education has an
impact on oral health
improvement.