Early childhood caries and sleep disorders

Abstract

Obstructive sleep-disordered breathing (oSDB) comprises a set of breathing disturbances when the individual is asleep due to partial or complete upper airway obstruction. Modifying or risk factors are the anatomy, the size and shape of the airway, muscle tone, central nervous system responses to hypoxia, etc. In children, this is associated with poor school performance and reduced memory and learning abilities. In addition, increased levels of blood and lung pressure and cardiac alterations have been reported in children with sleep disturbances. On the other hand, Early Childhood Caries (ECC) is defined as the presence of one or more decayed primary teeth (cavities) of children under the age of 5. This study aimed to establish the possible relationship between sleep disorders and ECC by means of validated surveys and determined whether the results obtained coincide with the available literature. Our results found that up to 24.5% of children with a high risk of caries present regular nasal congestion, while this finding is only present among 6% of children with a low risk of caries (p = 0.041). The dmft index remains significantly linked to this occasional congestion, but the association depends on the patient’s level of risk (p = 0.008); increasing with a high increasing risk of caries. As a conclusion, the risk of early childhood caries could correlate to a specific sleep change such as occasional snoring.