This month is Children’s Dental Health month and it’s started my ranting and raving again about why Dental Care is not a part of everyone’s Health Plan. Why not? We all know its imperative and an integral part of overall good health, as well as vision, and yet both of them are largely left out of most people’s health coverage. They are enormously costly, but absolutely necessary for both children and adults, yet the vast majority of our citizens are left out on a limb on their own, to pay for this much needed wellness care and figure out how to do it.
We need to address this and many other issues as a society and pressure the insurance companies as well as our employers to opt for plans that include this much needed benefit for the sake of our families. Without a doubt early dental attention is paramount for our children and part of it is regular visits to the dentist. The other part is teaching good daily care early to our kids and making certain they develop early routines that included the brushing, flossing and rinsing known to be effective and essential.
I deemed it so important, that as our editor-in-chief, I decided to make sure we ran some good articles this month that pointed out this importance and emphasized the techniques we need to teach our children. We also need to understand the role of diet and its place in our overall health, teeth included. Watching the sugar intake of our children and limiting things like soda drinking, or not getting it started in the first place is a good place to begin when it comes to cavities. Massaging the gums to make them strong is part of the routine we all need, but we also need the proper nutrients in our diet, including a decent amount of calcium to keep the bone strong and the roots intact.
Get your children off to the best start possible. Don’t wait. Infant dental care is here to stay. You as a parent can start the brushing and the massaging until they’re old enough to do it for themselves. I urge you to begin with them as babies and they will benefit from the attention for all the years to come.
Good health is complex. It also involves love, loving and being loved. There are a myriad of ways we must love our children and be consistent in this love. In the final analysis, no one is really healthy who isn’t loved. So in the month of February we also celebrate love. My message this month is that really loving our children means not only watching what they do and what they eat and drink, but who they know and what they dream of.
Happy Valentine’s Day! Thanks for reading.
