Overcrowded Nunavut houses bad for kids’ teeth

Parents keep kids quiet with sweet drinks

Dentist Malcolm Crozier and hygienist Ethel Bailey spend 12 days a month in Cambridge Bay, checking and repairing teeth. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

CAMBRIDGE BAY — Overcrowding in Nunavut homes is a major contributor to poor dental care, says dentist Malcolm Crozier, who spends 12 days a month in Cambridge Bay.

Dental health is a “housing issue,” Crozier said, when asked about the cause of poor dental health in Nunavut.

Cambridge Bay has a serious lack of social housing, with a lot of people indoors sharing crowded spaces, Crozier said.

To keep babies quiet, some parents let their babies suck on pacifiers dipped in honey, syrup, soda pop, fruit juice, sugar water, milk or formula.

Others send their babies off to sleep with a bottle, filling it with milk, juice, sweet evaporated milk or pop, he said.

The result of this “baby bottle syndrome” is that Crozier sees children as young as 18 months with severe tooth decay, called auniqtaarnaqtuq in Inuktitut.

The kids may have blackened teeth, rotten right down to their gums — and often it’s the four top front teeth that are affected, Crozier said, noting that he’s seeing increasing numbers of younger children with bad teeth.

“That’s troubling,” Crozier said. “You used to see kids with four rotten teeth at two and a half years. Now you see them at one and a half.”

This means their teeth start rotting as soon as they come in, usually during around seven months of age.

Due to overcrowding, maintaining good oral hygiene, like teeth brushing twice a day, is also a problem, he said.

In a crowded bathroom, there’s little space for keeping toothbrushes and toothpaste and making sure toothbrushes aren’t shared by other people in the home.

When faced with a mouth of decaying teeth in a young child, generally Crozier simply pulls the teeth — and they’ll go a year or two or more with a gap in front, which can affect the future shape of their mouth.

When their back teeth are also affected, he’ll refer them to the south for further treatment.

Sugar in the diet, compounded by poor oral hygiene, feeds the decay, Crozier said.

Older people have worse teeth but less decay, he said, likely due to the lack of sugar in their diet.

But sugar may not be the only reason for high levels of tooth decay among children in Nunavut, according to a dental health manual prepared by Nunavut’s health department for use during April, national dental health month.

The manual points to smoking as a possible cause of tooth decay among Nunavummiut. It cites statistics prepared by the Nunavut bureau of statistics, which show 14,948 smokers in the territory— out of a total population of about 30,000.

Blood circulation has been shown to decrease by as much at 70 per cent in the mouth during the smoking of a cigarette, the manual notes.

Smoking also affects the body’s defence system, it says, with new studies showing the possibility that second-hand tobacco smoke may cause gum disease.

Lack of vitamin D, needed to make strong teeth and bones, also is also linked to tooth decay..

Studies have shown many Nunavut children and pregnant women lack vitamin D, which is found the skin of Arctic char, seal liver, the yolks of bird and fish eggs, and seal, walrus and maktaq, because they’re eating store-bought food.

While the causes are many, the solution to improving dental health is easy to find: a toothbrush and toothpaste.

Crozier gives away toothbrushes and toothpaste to all his clients, but he wishes all Nunavut schools would have kids brush their teeth daily as part of the daily routine.

As for babies, they should start drinking from a cup at six months of age and be weaned from the bottle by one year of age. Babies shouldn’t go to bed with a bottle.

Ideally, after each feeding, babies should have their teeth cleaned with a clean washcloth, gauze pad or a soft infant toothbrush.

If there’s good news with respect to Nunavut’s dental health, it’s that teenagers appear to more and more interested in having a nice smile and good teeth.

Corzier, who also visits in Kugluktuk, said he often sees teens coming in to have their teeth fixed— and they tell him they’re brushing daily and want healthy, white teeth.