At the risk of sounding like an overly paranoid parent, I was glad the other day I got to sit down with Redmummy and Prof. Rahimah, an oral health expert working with Colgate to talk about dental health and hygiene, and pediatric dental issues.

Me looking very serious.

And truth be told, a bit scared.

As adults, most of us think we know all there is to know about teeth and dental hygiene. But I don’t think most of us have given teeth much thought beyond maybe our teenage years when we had braces. Most of us just go on auto pilot when it comes to dental hygiene – brush twice a day, floss or mouthwash.  Maybe the more hardworking (cough Fatty cough) will use a tongue scraper.

But because Fighter is starting solids now and is bound to start teething soon, I’ve been quite worried about children and teeth.  Cos even when I was a kid I used to see other kids with black spots on their milk teeth and think what’s going on at home why is nobody brushing their teeth for them.

So it was a good opportunity for me to talk to an oral health expert.

Here are some key points we picked up:

The difference between caries and cavities

Caries is the process that causes cavities, which are holes in the teeth. Caries is caused by bacteria that’s present in everyone’s mouths which converts carbs and sugar to acid in our mouths.  And this acid erodes the enamel on our teeth through a process called demineralization. Saliva remineralizes the teeth, but if the teeth loses more minerals than can be put back, you get a cavity.

Brushing, flossing etc will keep your teeth clean to avoid overpopulation of bacteria but the bacteria will always be there and caries is always occurring in everyone’s mouths because most foods contain some form of sugar. Scary huh?

How to take care of your teeth?

Within 5 minutes of eating, the bacteria creates the acidic environment in our mouths already. And it takes saliva 30 minutes to neutralize this acidic environment.  And if you eat very frequent meals this process goes on and your mouth doesn’t get a chance to neutralize.

Therefore to prevent caries, you need to brush teeth with toothpaste containing fluoride.  Or drink fluorinated water (instead of sugary drinks) cos fluoride slows down the demineralization process.  Cut down frequent consumption of sugar.

And use Colgate Maximum Protection Sugar Acid Neutralizer toothpaste. Hehehe.

As mentioned in my previous post, the toothpaste works to neutralize sugar acid in our mouths (assisting your saliva) to prevent caries.  It’s the first sugar acid neutralizer toothpaste EVER.

How to take care of baby’s teeth?

Wah this one a bit stressful.  For now, since Fighter has no teeth yet but tons of sugar in his mouth from his milk, Prof Rahimah advised me to take a clean cloth and wet it with warm water, then gently rub his gums with it.  You can do it after every feed or just do it in the bath which sounds a lot easier.  The point is to get baby used to caring for his teeth and inculcate good dental habits for the rest of his life.

When kids have teeth, the Colgate Maximum Protection Sugar Acid Neutralizer toothpaste can be used for them too. 🙂

Redmummy and I!  We were served a special lunch at the briefing.

Digging in.

This is what we had.  Malaysian style cuisine. If you don’t know what we had, it was kerabu mangga, kangkung belacan, pandan chicken, sweet and sour fish and sambal belacan.  Also had tom yam soup and ice lemon tea.  For dessert, sago gula Melaka.

Then after lunch, the Colgate revealed how much sugar is actually in the meal (and probably present in most local dishes too).

They asked us to guess and I grossly understated.  RM said confirm I don’t cook cos I think there’s so much sugar in everything and I blindly followed her advice.  But she was wrong!!! She must cook super healthily.

Shocking how much sugar we consumed in that one meal omg.  38 teaspoons of sugar for lunch is insane.  Felt a tremendous urge to go brush my teeth after that.  And then check my blood.

Me in shock. Hahaha.

The Colgate Maximum Protection plus Sugar Acid Neutralizer toothpaste is available in all supermarkets and pharmacies now!