Old wives tale about losing a tooth in pregnancy could be true
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- Published: Sunday, 29 November -0001 23:58
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The old wives tale that tooth loss is associated with pregnancy could be true new research suggests. Scientists have discovered that women who have three children have on average four fewer teeth than those who have had just two. Professor Stefan Listl, from The Netherlands, said: “Our study provides unique and novel evidence for causal links between the number of natural children and missing teeth.”
Researchers studied a database that contains information on the health, educational attainment, and household income of more than 120,000 adults aged 50 and above from 27 European countries plus Israel.
Almost 35,000 people with an average age of 67 responded to questions. They reported an average of 10 missing teeth in their mouth. As might be expected, tooth loss increased with age, ranging from nearly seven fewer teeth for women in their 50s-60s up to 19 fewer teeth for men aged 80 and above.
Higher levels of educational attainment were also linked to lower risk of tooth loss among women.
A third child after two of the same sex was associated with significantly more missing teeth for women, but not men, if compared with parents whose first two children were different sexes.
This suggests that an additional child might be detrimental to the mothers’ oral health, say the researchers, who publish their findings online in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health.
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