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Better Babies Through Dentistry?
孕妇口腔健康生的孩子会更健康？
By Dan Ferber
ScienceNOW Daily News
1 November 2006
Do healthy gums equal healthy babies? Some research suggests that mothers with serious gum infections, or periodontitis, are more likely to give birth to premature, and thus more sickly, kids. But the long-anticipated results of a clinical trial take a serious bite out of the healthy gum theory.
健康的牙龈就等于健康的婴儿吗？一些科学家们说牙龈感染或牙周炎的孕妇更可能早产。但是一项长期的临床观察对健康牙龈学说提出了异议。
Epidemiologists have shown that preterm births occur significantly more frequently in pregnant women with periodontitis, a common and chronic bacterial infection that causes red, swollen gums and loose teeth. Studies in rodents support the link: Female mice and hamsters with infected gums give birth to smaller pups and suffer more spontaneous abortions. Such work led periodontist Bryan Michalowicz of the University of Minnesota School of Dentistry in Minneapolis and colleagues at four medical centers to launch a randomized, blinded, controlled clinical trial in 2003 to see if treating periodontitis in pregnant women could prevent them from giving birth early.
流行病学家提出患有常见的慢性细菌感染导致牙龈红肿和牙齿松动牙周炎的孕妇更易发生早产。啮齿动物的研究支持这一理论：牙龈感染的雌性小鼠和颊鼠生出的幼仔较小且自发流产机率更高。因此明尼苏达大学口腔学院的牙周病学家Bryan Michalowicz和其他四个医学中心的同事决定进行一项随机、双盲对照的临床观察来看治疗牙周炎的孕妇能否预防早产。
The dentists randomly assigned more than 800 women, who were 4 to 5 months pregnant, to either a treatment or a control group. Dentists scraped plaque and calculus, which contain the offending bacteria, from the teeth of treated women near the diseased section of the gum. Treated women also had their teeth polished once a month and received oral-hygiene instruction, while women in the control group were examined but not treated.
口腔科医生们将800余名怀孕4~5个月的孕妇随机分为治疗组和对照组，治疗组的孕妇被清洗了牙龈可能含有细菌的牙垢和牙结石，并每月洗牙一次并接受口腔卫生指导。对照组的孕妇只是检查没有任何治疗。
Twelve percent of the 407 women in the treatment group gave birth early, while 13% of the 405 women in the control group did, indicating that the treatment failed to lower the women's risk of delivering a preterm baby. Nor did the treatment lower the risk that a baby was born small for its age, the team reports today in the New England Journal of Medicine.
结果治疗组407名孕妇有20%早产，而对照组405名孕妇有13%发生早产，提示治疗并不能降低孕妇的早产风险。新英格兰医学杂志今天的报道也提示治疗不会降低新生儿的低体重发生率。
"It's a very solid piece of evidence" showing that treating gum disease won't prevent premature or low-birth-weight babies, says Jane Atkinson, program director of the clinical trials program of the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, which funded the study. But perinatal epidemiologist Jennifer Culhane of Drexel University in Philadelphia isn't willing to write off the benefit of healthy gums just yet. She notes that other data in the study hint that dental treatment could lower the risk of birth before 8 months gestation, although the study includes too few patients to say for sure.
这个项目的负责人，国家口腔和颅面研究中心的Jane Atkinson说充分的证据显示治疗牙龈疾病并不会降低早产和低体重新生儿的发生率，但是费城Drexel大学的围产期流行病学家Jennifer Culhane目前并不想写文章否认健康牙龈的好处，她说这项研究结果显示口腔科的治疗能够降低不足8个月妊娠的早产，而且这项研究样本量太少不能下肯定结论。 [标签:content1][标签:content2]
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作者:admin@医学,生命科学 2011-07-29 17:16
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