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Why does pregnancy have an impact on dental health?
It is well known that all kinds of discomfort can occur during pregnancy: Many pregnant women have to deal with morning sickness, swollen feet or mood swings. It is less well known that pregnancy can also affect oral and dental health. Up to 80 per cent of pregnant women suffer from problems with their gums. But why does pregnancy affect oral health at all?
Hormones change
The hormonal changes during pregnancy ensure that the connective tissue throughout the body is loosened so that the baby has room to grow. This change also makes the gums looser so that bacteria can penetrate particularly easily. The pregnancy hormones also have an influence on the formation of dental plaque.
More blood in the body
During pregnancy, you have around 30 to 40 per cent more blood in your body than usual to supply your baby with oxygen. This also increases your blood pressure and can make it particularly easy for your gums to bleed.
Busy immune system
Strictly speaking, the baby in the mother's womb is a foreign body because it contains hereditary cells from the father as well as those from the mother. To prevent the body from rejecting the baby, the immune system must build up a tolerance to the foreign cells. As the immune system is busy with this important task, fewer resources are available for immune defence and bacteria have an easier time.
Low pH value of the saliva
During pregnancy, the pH value of saliva decreases, making it more acidic. As a result, it can no longer adequately protect the teeth from bacteria.
Toothache, gingivitis & co.: Possible dental problems during pregnancy
All the changes described during pregnancy - the hormonal changes, the increased blood volume, the busy immune system and the lower pH value - provide an ideal growth environment for bacteria. Pregnant women are therefore particularly susceptible to gingivitis, tooth decay and toothache. And for this very reason, it is particularly important that you pay particular attention to thorough dental care during pregnancy.
Let's take a closer look at the possible dental problems:
Gum inflammation and periodontitis
Up to 80 per cent of pregnant women suffer from gingivitis or other gum problems. That's why there's even a name for it: Pregnancy gingivitis. The gums become inflamed particularly easily as the tissue is swollen due to the hormonal changes and is not close to the tooth as usual. This means that bacteria from the plaque can easily penetrate the gums, multiply and cause inflammation. The typical first sign of gingivitis is bleeding gums. The severity of the symptoms varies from woman to woman: some women only experience slight bleeding of the gums on individual teeth, while other women can experience heavy bleeding on all their teeth even if they touch them lightly. Gum growths can also occur in rare cases.
Good to know:
The best way to treat gingivitis is to brush your teeth thoroughly - even if it bleeds. You can find out exactly how gingivitis develops and how best to treat it in our article:
If gingivitis is not treated and the bacteria continue to spread undisturbed, it can develop into periodontitis: The entire periodontium becomes inflamed, the gums and jawbone recede and gum pockets form in which the bacteria can settle. In the advanced stage, the tooth necks are exposed due to the receding gums and the teeth can become loose and, in the worst case, even fall out.
Increased risk of premature births with periodontitis
If you are pregnant, you should definitely have periodontitis treated. This bacterial infectious disease increases the risk of premature birth sevenfold. The inflammatory bacteria can enter the bloodstream and cause a premature birth. Several studies have now shown that women with healthy teeth have a very low risk of premature birth, while women who had a premature birth predominantly suffered from severe gum disease and had an increased proportion of the body's own defence products in their blood.
It is therefore all the more important that you take good care of your teeth during pregnancy and have gum inflammation treated to prevent periodontitis from developing in the first place.
Caries
Tooth decay occurs when the bacteria in plaque metabolise sugar into acid and this acid then attacks the tooth enamel. As the protective function of saliva is reduced due to the lower pH value and pregnant women are more susceptible to dental plaque, the risk of tooth decay is higher than usual during pregnancy. In addition, pregnant women often have cravings for sweet or sour foods. Whether the acid comes directly from the orange juice or lemonade or the chocolate has to be metabolised into acid first - these foods endanger your dental health and increase the risk of tooth decay.
Good to know:
If you suffer from tooth decay, it can also be harmful for your child. This is because tooth decay is contagious. Caries bacteria, which are transmitted after birth through kissing or licking spoons or dummies, can already infect the little baby teeth. You can find out exactly how tooth decay develops and what you can do to prevent it here:
Toothache due to morning sickness
Frequent vomiting, which occurs in many women, especially in the first few months of pregnancy, can also damage tooth enamel. If the teeth come into frequent contact with stomach acid, they can be damaged. On the one hand, this increases the risk of tooth decay, and on the other hand, your teeth may suddenly become sensitive to pain. If the enamel is damaged, nerve tracts from the underlying layer, the dentine, may be exposed. This can lead to stinging toothache, especially on contact with sweet, sour, cold or hot foods. In the worst case, teeth that have already been damaged can also break.
You can find tips on treating sensitive teeth in our article:
What can you do about sensitive teeth?
Tooth loss
It used to be said: "Every child costs a tooth." It was believed that the minerals needed to build the baby's teeth and bones would be taken from the mother's teeth and bones. This assumption has since been disproved. Today we know that the baby absorbs all the nutrients from the mother's food. Nevertheless, there is a grain of truth in this statement. In a study, German and Dutch scientists found that there is a correlation between the dental health of mothers and the number of children they have given birth to. Mothers over 50 with three children have on average four fewer teeth in their mouths than mothers with only two children. This correlation does not exist for fathers.
The researchers suspect that, in addition to the unfavourable conditions during pregnancy already described, other reasons could also play a role: for example, some women may delay necessary treatments due to a lack of money or time.
