Health Insurance Daily

Vigilant Dental Care Reduces Premature Births

Plan sponsors may want to enhance their dental benefits in light of mounting evidence that pregnant women with poor dental hygiene are more likely to deliver premature and low-birth-weight babies. It costs $5 billion a year to treat such infants, who are 40 times more likely to die than other babies.

Pregnant women with chronic gum disease during their second trimester may be up to seven times more likely to deliver prematurely, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Dental Association. However, premature births declined by as much as 84% among women who received treatments for gum disease before the 35th week of pregnancy, researchers reported in the Journal of Periodontology.

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posted by Mike @ 12:50 PM