The aim of a new campaign in Co Mayo is to reduce the number of preventable dental injuries in children by encouraging the use of mouth guards in sport. Michelle McDonaghreports
Athletes have a one in 10 chance of suffering a facial or dental injury during each session or game, yet few children and young people wear mouth guards when involved in sports, according to a leading dental expert.
And, he says, the injury or loss of a child's tooth is likely to lead to many years of expensive visits to the dentist for treatment and maintenance.
"The hangover that lasts for life" is how Dr Maurice Quirke, chairman of the Irish Dental Association's general dental practitioner's group, describes trauma to a child's tooth.
"I think anybody who is playing contact sports without a mouth guard is being irresponsible. It's like going on a motorbike without a helmet.
"I see enough needless trauma to the teeth to show that a lot of children involved in sport are not wearing mouth guards," the Wexford-based dentist explains.
Trauma to the teeth during sport can lead to broken and damaged teeth, dead nerves which cause the tooth to go black and teeth being driven out through the lip which can cause scarring.
"The treatment ranges from large fillings to building up chunks of the teeth that have been knocked out to root treatment, crowns and possible ultimately to implants, all of which are very expensive and are entirely preventable," says Quirke.
He is strongly supporting the Mind Your Mouth campaign which the HSE has launched in Co Mayo to increase awareness of the importance of wearing mouth guards during sporting activities.
The campaign was the idea of dental health promoter for Mayo, Margaret O'Malley, who discovered that 90 per cent of the children and young people who were treated in dental clinics in Mayo for repair to their front teeth were playing sports when the injuries occurred.
As part of the campaign, a dental first aid kit for mouth injuries is being distributed to primary schools and sports clubs in the county.
The kit, which contains gloves, a sterile swab, a sample bottle and saline solution, provides immediate first aid and will help save the tooth in the event of a sports-related accident.
"The earlier the child starts to wear mouth protection the better, because when children get older they find it difficult to get used to something in their mouth.
"In rugby and Australian football, the players are not insured unless they wear their mouth guard.
"Every child, male or female, playing a contact sport like Gaelic football, hurling or soccer should be wearing a mouth guard and it would be great if the GAA came on board with this campaign," O'Malley says.
The knowledge that mouth guards help in the prevention of serious dental and facial injuries is not new, she explains. Boxing is generally credited with being the first sport to see the advantages of mouth guards and in competitive martial arts, participants are required to wear them.
Although mouth guards are available over the counter, both Margaret O'Malley and Maurice Quirke recommend that parents buy their child a custom-fitted mouth guard from their dentist. These mouth guards can also be worn over orthodontic braces.
Games promotion officer with the GAA in Mayo, Eugene Lavin, is firmly behind the HSE campaign as he believes in the need to protect the teeth of children and young people.
During his 40 years' involvement with Gaelic games and his own time as a county player, he has seen his share of nasty sports-related teeth injuries.
When one young person he was training lost his tooth - root and all - during a game, Lavin put his first aid training into practice and placed the tooth into a pint of milk. A dentist was able to successfully reattach the tooth later that day.
"I personally believe that it would be easier to bring a young person home to his/her parents with a broken or fractured ankle than with their two front teeth gone because of the years of expensive dental treatment they would need," he says.