UK children are having almost all their teeth removed due to shocking levels of decay, with poor diet and a lack of dental hygiene to blame, an investigation has found. Child health experts told a BBC Panorama programme focusing on Sheffield that it is becoming increasingly common for pre-school age children to turn up to hospital with multiple teeth removed. In one extreme case, a three-year-old child needed 18 of their 20 baby teeth taken out.
The programme heard from experts in physical and mental health, along with academics, who said British children are now on average 7cms shorter than their European counterparts, putting them at further risk of poor health in later life. Professor Helen Rodd, a paediatric dentist at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals, said: “We are seein g a certain group of children with really high decay rates , with many, many decayed teeth. And they tend to be younger children in the four to eight age range and they tend to be children living in poverty.
“I saw a child who was three who was having 18 teeth taken out – children have 20 baby teeth, so they were only left with two. That is an extreme example, but it’s not an exceptional thing. We see that from time to time.
” On one Saturday, two of Professor Todd’s colleagues saw 31 children who took out 195 teeth between them, something she described as “a pretty depressing and upsetting situation for the children, their families and the dentists themselves”. The problem is having a knock-o.
