The Silent Crisis Dentistry Books for Children Sedation and General Anesthesia Early Childhood Caries Inappropriate feeding of children can lead to a typical nursing pattern decay. This is a very devastating type of tooth decay for the young patients, their parents, and the pediatric dentist. Overall water fluoridation and other methods of fluoride application have resulted in reduction of caries rates. ECC persists as a decay pattern and requires our special attention. Early recognition and intervention are essential to successful treatment and prevention of disease progression.
Caries is an infectious disease.
Several factors need to be combined to develop caries. The combination of the factors leads to disease, if one or more factors are missing disease may not develop. Teeth Primary teeth usually start to erupt in the first year of life. The first teeth to erupt at approximately 6 months are the lower central incisors followed by the upper central incisors. At 12 months usually all lower incisors and all upper incisors are erupted.