Caring For Your Baby’s Mouth Birth-6 months

Getting to Know Your Little One

The first few weeks of your newborn's life is an exciting time. Being responsible for this tiny creature can also be a little scary, particularly if you're not familiar with how a newborn looks and behaves. After all, they don’t come with a manual. Google is a great resource these days. We did not have the access to the information you do now when my daughter was a newborn.

If you feel anxious or uncertain about any part of caring for your baby, don't hesitate to call your health care professionals, family or friends who have had experience caring for a newborn. Everyone has an opinion so take advice with a grain of salt, use what works for you and file the rest.
Your Baby’s Mouth is important: What to Expect

If you're a new parent, there can be a lot of things to worry about. Although infants usually do not have teeth when they are born, it is still important to care for their mouth from the start. 1 in 3000 babies are born with a tooth.
We will talk more about teething in next week's episode.

As soon as your baby is born it is ok to look inside their mouth. I recommend you look to see if they have any tethered tissues. What does that mean, a lip or tongue tie. As with most topics there are different opinions on the subject. If your baby is having trouble latching this is the first place I would investigate. If you are nursing it should not be painful to the Mom. If you are bottle feeding you may need to change the size or shape to get a better latch. I talked about the difference between breast vs bottle feeding last week and recommend some books as resources on nursing. Diane Bahr is an amazing resource on infants' mouth growth and development.

If your newborn has a tethered lip or tongue it can have many effects as they grow, other than latching, it can affect their eating habits, swallowing, speech and breathing.

Getting it released at an early age, while hard for a parent, is much easier on the child as they will not even have a memory of the event. I recommend working with an oral myofunctional therapist to help with proper positioning and posture.

What else might you see in your little one mouth?
For full Blog go to dentalhygieine411.com