Feeding and dietary practices of nursing caries children in Riyadh

The characteristics of rampant caries include rapid development of lesions, involvement of several teeth and occurrence of the lesions on tooth surfaces generally considered at low risk for carious attack such as lingual surfaces of posterior teeth. Nursing caries is J specific form of rampant caries. The feature that distinguishes typical nursing caries from rampant caries is the absence of caries in the mandibular incisors, which are protected by the action of tongue and lower lip during feeding and pooled sublingual saliva. The effects of nursing caries include pain, inadequate nutrition, speech problems. sleep disturbances, orthodontic problems and psychological concerns of the child and parents due to poor aesthetic (1). Moreover, the inadequate nutrition, increased gluco-cortico-steroid production due to pain and decreased growth hormone secretion caused by disturbed sleep could combine to retard these children' growth and development (1). Many nursing caries children have to be provided treatment under general anaesthesia (2, 3). It has also been reported that nursing caries are a risk factor for dental caries in future (4-6). A study by WYNE et al (7) reported 2. nursing caries pre- valence of 27.3 % in pre-schoolers of Riyadh. AL-AMOUDI et al (8) reported a nursing caries prevalence of 20 % in Saudi children of Jeddah. These prevalence figures are higher than an average prevalence of 5.0% reported in most developed countries (9).King Saud Universit