Emotions and Teeth

If a child gnaws on his rattle or chews his doll, if he crams his mouth with building blocks or paper, don't let him choke, but otherwise leave him alone. The mouth is an "important organ of investigation." Such was the advice Psychiatrist Alexander Reid Martin gave to dentists and public health specialists at a meeting on child dentistry in Manhattan last week. Parents who keep snatching things from their children's mouths not only prevent infants from exercising their jaws, but also cramp the development of personality, for a child's first "satisfactions and pleasures, his first hungers and frustrations" are centred around his mouth.

Said Dr. Martin, warming to his subject, a mother's emotions have great influence upon her child's teeth, even before the baby is born. A woman who is anxious, apprehensive or resentful during pregnancy may not bother to eat tooth-forming foods (calcium, phosphorus and vitamins). After the child is born, she must be the thermostat to the "emotional climate of the home." A mother who pampers her child never lets him get his teeth into anything. Consider the Eskimos, said Dr. Martin. They "use their teeth for everything, including softening frozen leather," and Eskimos rarely suffer from tooth decay.

But if children are treated harshly by their parents, they may become tense and nervous, clench their jaws, grind their teeth. Such habits may cause dental trouble. Often children who are lonely or unwanted have an insatiable craving for sweets, "as if they were trying to make up for the absence of sweetness in their lives."

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