Background
Methods
Methodology
Setting and context
Design
Participants
Data collection
Analyses
Results
Growing up | As an adult | As a mother |
---|---|---|
• Teenage perceptions • Fluoride • Traditional approaches • Diet • Negative impacts | • Disease • Traumatic past experience • Cost • Tooth loss and wellbeing | • Pregnancy • Diet • Lack of information • Recommendations for health promotion |
Oral health growing up
We weren’t taught about mouthwash or flossing, we were just taught about brushing, we didn’t know it was about your gums too, I never remember that. But now we learn all that, you know, brush your gums, and clean your whole mouth. Yeah, when I was a teenager, I didn’t give a toss, but then you come to full circle into an adult and you start taking care of it, you remember ‘oh yeah that’s why’, and you start to do things. (Interview – Mum A)
Teenage perceptions
I hated it. There was a period of time where I never used a tooth-brush at all, I just used a towel or whatever I had and went like this (action of rubbing towel across teeth with fingers), but now I brush all the time because I don’t want false teeth. (Group 1 – Mum 1)
Fluoride
I remember one time because my front tooth crossed over the other, it would be really dark and I hated it and we would have to take them home and we would have a pink one at home and you would have to chew on it before you brushed your teeth and it would show (the plaque) then you would brush your teeth to see if you were getting it. (Group 1 – Mum 2)
Traditional approaches
They cooked in the charcoal, and they didn’t shake it off, they just ate it. I can remember going fishing they chucked the fish on the coals. I can remember sitting there spitting out charcoal, you know what I mean about the crunchy gritty bits, but that’s how they lived off the land. (Group 2 – Mum 3)
Diet
Fluoride was in the water, so we had the healthiest teeth in the cemetery. But being a child back in my day, my folks and I didn’t have a lot of money, so we ate a lot of fruit and mum killed her own cows and stuff, and we did all that. We never went to the shops to buy anything, because mum milked the cows, the goats. We used to eat chook eggs, the duck eggs, you know. (Interview – Mum B)
Negatives impacts to oral health
You know one thing I feel really strongly about now that I know, is we were brought up with mum and dad smoking in the house. Mum and dad smoking in the car. Mum and dad smoking around children. You know what I mean, and then I look at my teeth and think to myself how yellow they are. And when I go to the dentist, they ask how long have you been smoking: I have never smoked in my life. You know what I mean and then I look back at it and think to myself, like for them to say smoking causes yellowness, and you have that yellow look on your teeth. (Group 2 – Mum 3)
Oral health as an adult
Disease
For me I had the perfect teeth, you know, and it wasn’t until I got diabetes and I’m fanatical with brushing teeth and mouthwash and flossing, you know, but because of diabetes and stuff like that - I mean don’t believe everything you hear about: ‘if you don’t do this and you don’t do that, this is what’s going to happen’. You can do all the right things and still end up with no teeth. Like I’ve got no teeth because I got really bad infections from my wisdom teeth. I’ve got no molars and I had root canal here, so you can be fanatical as you want. (Group 2 – Mum 2)
Traumatic past dental experiences
And then I got wisdom teeth down and the dentist lady used my good tooth to anchor off and she shattered it. So I still have bits of jaw bone come through, yeah so I’m picking bone out every now and then. I’m picking bone out going, where did this come from? (Interview – Mum B)
Cost
I’ve got extras health insurance and I still don’t to go unless I have to and there is something going on. I’m supposed to have a plate to wear when I am sleeping but that thing costs like $400-$500 dollars. (Group 2 – Mum 1)
Tooth loss
Your face changes, even the way you talk, even just rinsing your mouth after you brush your teeth, you know water spurts out. You have to be careful when you are out drinking or eating. I work in a high school and I don’t even laugh anymore because of it. (Group 1 – Mum 3)
Going to the dentist nowadays it is cheaper to get a tooth taken out than filled most of the time. (Group 1 – Mum 2)
Oral health as a mother
Pregnancy
I think all of it too is having kids, they are just drawing everything out. They just suck the life out of you. They do, because it is all nutrients, the baby is taking everything, you know everything in your gums. That’s when I first started having trouble with my teeth. (Interview – Mum C)
I actually had pretty good teeth up until 19 years ago. And yeah it was true, the minute I fell pregnant I started having issues with my teeth. I was 18 and yeah that’s when I first started having problems. I mean I had fillings all though school, but that’s when they really started deteriorating and the first pulled. (Interview – Mum D)
Diet
The biggest thing for me, I mean my kids still have sugar, they still have soft drink, they still have lollies, chips, ice-blocks. I think it’s all about kind of balancing. You know we might have a treat day, and then the next day we will cut back a little bit, but I’m not so concerned about that. Or that’s not my main concern. But I’m not going to put her to bed with a coke, you know, she is still being breastfed, she’s not having a lot of that food, so I’m not too worried. (Interview - Mum E)
It comes down to your dietary intake, eating your fruit and vegies, if they don’t like what they see in solid, I will blend it and put it on pizza bases or in spaghetti bolognaise. They are going to get it one way or another. (Interview – Mum F)
Lack of information
You still see it now when you’re out walking, kids with parents, the kids are just handed a bottle of coke. (Interview – Mum A)
I had to go research it myself, there’s not a lot of parents that get to have the internet and stuff. Like I can’t get on the internet. It’s not like old-school where you can go to an encyclopaedia. Yeah maybe through the school, there is not enough in the school. (Interview – Mum B)
Recommendations for health promotion
I think it (dental) could be more into the medical side of things, like medical centres as well because you know it seems so separate. You know you got the dental side and the medical side, and I think they really need to push it, you know when they do the health checks, they really don’t check too much about the dental. (Interview – Mum E)
I think to educate kids, especially little, because that is where it starts. You need to start these little jingles up again about brushing your teeth. We do it with hand washing, do it with teeth, you know. Take this jingle back home to mum, like “slip slop slap”. And then maybe with the preppies to year 3, create a person that will come in and dress up as a tooth and show them how to brush their teeth, you know. (Group 2 – Mum 3)
I also think there does need to be more education for the parent, particularly in those early years. If they don’t have good dental hygiene, they are not going to be able to teach the kids well and for them just waiting until school age, there needs to be something out there for the parents. (Group 2 – Mum 1)
Your mouth is, you know talking, eating, and drinking. There is just so much involved around it. I used to do Indigenous support in high schools and we used to have a program focusing on general well-being and puberty and body image, and it was focused on your hygiene and we would sit down and talk to the kids as something as simple as: ‘it was important to brush your teeth twice day’. I mean some of these kids didn’t even have a toothbrush. Well this is when I was working in Toowoomba and we would have to fund it ourselves. We would have to outsource toothbrushes and toothpastes and you know little deodorants and soaps and you would be surprised how many Indigenous kids did not have the equipment, the means to get that and it was really sad. (Interview – Mum E)