For the Kids...

• Parents should wipe their newborn’s gums with a clean, damp cloth after each feeding to control the accumulation of plaque and to establish this ritual as part of the daily routine.

• Parents should begin brushing their child’s teeth as soon as they come in, with only a pea-sized amount of fluoride toothpaste. Ideally, flossing should begin when two adjacent teeth touch.

• Parents should take their young child with them to their next routine dentist appointment to reduce some of the child’s potential anxiety in the dental chair. The child will have a chance to get used to the sounds, smells and staff in the dental office, prior to his/her own dental visit.

• Children should visit the dentist no later than six months after the first tooth erupts, or before the child’s first birthday.

• Parents should not give an unattended or sleeping child a bottle with milk or juice; instead, children should drink water to prevent baby bottle tooth decay.

• The term "indentured servant" has a story behind it. In the colonial days, debtors were shipped from Europe to America to work as servants. Instead of signing a contract, they sealed their agreement by leaving their dental imprint in wax.

• The defenders of the Alamo were the first to try chewing gum in America. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, the Mexican dictator who fought Davy Crockett and his Texas comrades, introduced modern day chewing gum. His version of chewing gum was chicle, the latex sap of the sapodilla tree. Thomas Adams, an American inventor, used chicle as the base for commercially based chewing gums. This is possibly how they came up with the brand name "Chicklets."

• Francisco Goya, a famous Spanish Artist, depicts a morbid dental custom of his time in the painting "A Caza de Dientas" (or "tooth hunting"). Dentists would quickly transplant live teeth, often stolen from the dead, into their patients’ empty alveolar sockets.