Parental Education on Infant Feeding Habits and Oral-hygiene Practices

Objectives: Preliminary investigation of an ongoing randomized controlled trial to evaluate the effectiveness of family-centered oral health promotion on feeding habits and oral hygiene practices of 1-year-old infants.
Methods: In this study, 589 families were recruited at baseline and randomly allocated into test and control groups. Individualized oral health instruction and pamphlet on infant oral health were delivered to the subjects in the test group, whereas those in the control group only received the pamphlet. Information on the feeding habits and oral hygiene practices of the infants at 1 year old was collected through questionnaire. Clinical examinations the dental hygiene status of the infants were also conducted.
Results: 144 families (71 in test and 73 in control group) with infants reaching 1-year old were followed up (follow-up rate 76.2%). There was no significant differences between the two groups (p>0.05) regarding the infants’ feeding practices: bottle-feeding at mid-night lasting >6-months (test: 29.6%, control: 30.1%); falling asleep with milk in the mouth (test: 28.2%, control: 21.9%); having sweet drink excluding milk >once daily (test: 7.0%, control: 15.1%). Parents from 132 families (91.7%) cleaned their infant’s oral cavity regularly after tooth eruption (test: 94.4%, control: 89.0%). Among these families, 34.1% used toothbrush, 39.4% used mouth-wipe and 21.2% used both aids, and very few caregivers used other methods for mouth cleaning (5.3%). There was no significant difference between groups on regular mouth cleaning twice daily (test: 26.8%, control 34.2%, p>0.05). Proportion of infants with visible plaque was significantly lower in the test group than in the control group (24.6% vs 46.5%, p<0.01).
Conclusions: The preliminary study results show that parents in both the test and control groups had similar infant feeding and oral hygiene practices, but the parents in the test group were more effective in removing plaque for their infants.