The effect of premature birth on the primary dentition

Abstract EN

Aims: The aims of the present study were to determine if primary teeth eruption and the presence of enamel defect are affected by low birth weight and prematurely of birth.

Materials and Methods: The total subjects of (420) child aged 4 – 24 months were included in this study, consisted of (210) prematurely born (<37 gestational weeks and birth weight < 2.500 Kg) children and 210 control children (≥40 gestational weeks and birth weight ≥ 2.500 Kg).

Those children selected randomly the children who came to the primary health care centers with their mother for vaccination and the mothers asked to participate in this study.

For each child, clinical exanimation was performed in dental chair.

The criterion used for enamel defect to include various enamel hypoplasias, deficiency of enamel in the form of pits, grooves or other quantitative surface loss and enamel hypocalcifications and opacities.

Data were analyzed using numbers, percentages, means and standard deviations.

T – test, Z – test Chi – square (X2) test were used for determining the differences concerning different variables.

The differences were considered significant at p≤ 0.05.

Results: There was no significant difference (p>0.05) between different genders numbers among in each age group for the preterm and control children.

The results showed significantly (p<0.05) delayed eruption of the primary teeth in the prematurely born children as compared with the control children in all age groups except in 4 – 6 months age group, also there was significantly higher percentages of enamel defect present in preterm children, than in control children in all age groups except in 4 – 6 months age group.

Conclusions: The findings indicated that the eruption of deciduous teeth was delayed and the percentage of enamel defect was significantly increased in prematurely born children.