Women's attitudes to and perceptions of oral health and dental care during pregnancy
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Marc J.N.C. Keirse
Abstract
Aims: To assess pregnant women's opinions on and perceptions of oral health and their relationship to oral hygiene and dental care practices.
Methods: Questionnaire survey on perceived oral health, oral hygiene and utilization of dental services among 649 nulliparae attending for antenatal care at all public antenatal clinics in Adelaide, South Australia.
Results: Women rated their general health significantly better than their oral health (P<0.001) and attributed more importance to healthy teeth for their baby than for themselves (P<0.001). Only 35% had dental care during pregnancy; 35% had no dental visit for at least two years and 27% reported cost as a major deterrent. Eighteen percent had experienced gingival bleeding before pregnancy and 41% during pregnancy. Gingival bleeding outside pregnancy was clearly related to perceived oral health (P<0.001), but this was less so for bleeding during pregnancy. The latter was not related to age, level of education, employment, marital status, or smoking habits. Only 38% of women with gingival bleeding in pregnancy had a dental care visit in pregnancy and 28% considered their oral health as very good.
Conclusions: Many pregnant women do not perceive gingival bleeding as indicating inflammatory disease and seek no professional help for it. Maternity care providers need to devote more attention to oral health in antenatal clinics and antenatal education.
©2010 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin New York
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- The Declaration of Dubrovnik
- The prediction and prevention of preterm birth and its consequences: an unmet challenge to perinatal medicine, science and society
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- The prognosis of pregnancy conceived despite the presence of an intrauterine device (IUD)
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- Role of parental folate pathway single nucleotide polymorphisms in altering the susceptibility to neural tube defects in South India
- Original articles – Fetus
- Cholinergic signal activated renin angiotensin system associated with cardiovascular changes in the ovine fetus
- The potential of 4D sonography in the assessment of fetal neurobehavior – multicentric study in high-risk pregnancies
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- Roster of Perinatal Societies
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