Original scientific paper

The significance of prematurity in pedodontics

Šime Kordić ; Poliklinika za zaštitu zubi i usta, Split

Abstract

The author presents some biological, medical and social characteristics of premature children in comparison with children of the same age born at full term. He presents the results of investigations of the effect of prematurity on the later stages of physical and emotional development of these children. The findings show that premature children at the time of reaching school age have more or less the same chances for a subsequent normal life, the same as their contemporaries, the children born at full term. The majority of research workers have corroborated the statement. The problem, however, of premature children has not been examined sufficiently from the point of view of pedodontists. The author carried out systematic examinations of the teeth and jaws in 45 premature children at the age of 6 years, who were born at Split in 1961, and repeated the same examination in a control group of an equal number of children born at full term. He found that the prevalence of dental caries, irregularities in the development of the teeth and jaws, of the osseous structure and in the general mental condition was considerably higher in premature children than in children born at full term. This means that the premature birth of these children proved to have a harmful effect on the development of their tee'th and jaws and resulted in difficulties affecting the condition of the masticatory apparatus in later life and in oid age. The author recommends preventive measures to be taken as soon as possible to protect pregnant women, newborns and small babies, because these methods of work may contribute to a better structural development of the hard dental tissues and to the normal development of the jaws in premature babies. With the onset of dentition, measures of hygiene should be undertaken, bad habits counteracted and early treatment of caries and of osthodontic anomalies should be undertaken. The socio-medical protection of pregnant women should moreover be improved with the aim of reducing the incidence of premature births as the number of physically and mentally retarded persons will thus be reduced as well.

Keywords

Hrčak ID:

108075

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/108075

Publication date:

15.6.1972.

Article data in other languages: croatian german

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