Hundreds of Birmingham kids are living with rotten teeth - is your child one of them?

Hundreds of Birmingham children had rotten teeth removed under general anaesthetic last year. New NHS figures show 230 procedures where a child aged 10 or under had at least one decayed tooth taken out in hospital in 2018/19.

Children who have teeth removed in hospital have the procedure done under general anaesthetic because injections to numb the pain would be too traumatic for them to manage.

When they are unconscious, dentists will remove as many rotten teeth as they see necessary.

Sometimes, if a tooth shows the slightest sign of decay, it will be removed in order to prevent the child having to undergo further general anaesthetic at a later stage.
In most cases, tooth decay is caused by having too much sugar and not brushing teeth or cleaning gums properly.

Earlier this year Public Health England said that while children’s sugar intakes have declined slightly in recent years, they are still consuming the equivalent of around eight sugar cubes more than the recommended daily limit – and often eating 11g just at breakfast.

Dentists warned they were seeing cases where teeth had decayed right down to the gum.
The number of procedures for children’s rotten teeth removal was, however, down from 300 the year before.
Across England there were 30,965 procedures where a child had at least one rotten tooth removed.
Again, that was down from the year before, when it stood at 32,059.

In fluoridated Birmingham?
Posted yesterday


LETTER: State of children’s teeth is worrying 

The most successful national preventative measure of dental decay has been fluoridation. In the last century Birmingham added one part per million of fluoride to its water and the benefits have been felt ever since. The furore by anti-fluoridationists stopped progress despite all reputable scientific evidence refuting false claims.

What can you believe?