To Fight Premature Births, Say "Ahh"

Abstaining from cigarettes, alcohol and drug use, not to mention too much fish (too much mercury) -- those are some of the well-known commandments associated with pregnancy. Now, another contender is vying for a mention on that list: teeth-brushing.

What do teeth and fetuses have in common? On first blush, not that much. An increasing body of evidence, though, connects links between gum disease and hazardous premature baby birth. Recently, a new U.S. study found that mothers with gum disease are over three times more likely to prematurely give birth than those with better oral hygiene. Similar results, if not conclusive ones, have been documented in the past.

Stillbirths are yet another potential consequence. In fact, the need for a better understanding of the issue is so marked that even IRIN -- hardly a bastion of the deliberately provocative -- headlines with the following: "Dental care or die."

According to the World Health Organization, every year, some 13 million babies are born prematurely -- most of them in sub-Saharan Africa -- and one million of those will die. (Annually, more than three million stillbirths occur around the globe.) Even still, in a country like Sierra Leone, home to one of the world's top infant mortality rates, the Ministry of Health doesn't consider gum disease a major pregnancy risk. Compounding the issue is the fact that as of 2004, Sierra Leone had just five doctors, or one for every one million people.

Women are especially prone to developing gum disease during pregnancy, as the result of various hormonal changes that occur. In a potentially lethal journey, gum bleeding can transfer bacteria to the mother's placenta, which in turn can kill the fetus if not properly rejected by the body's immune system.

While in the developing world, oral hygiene is frequently seen as a luxury, Yiping Han -- a periodontics researcher at Case Western Reserve who's conducted extensive research on the subject  -- argues that needs to change. After over a decade of research, she says, it's time that dental was treated as necessity for both mothers and children alike: as she puts it, the mouth is the (teeth-lined) "gateway" to overall health.

Photo Credit: get directly down