A STUDY OF DMFT AND ORAL HYGIENE AND GINGIVAL STATUS AMONG PREGNANT WOMEN ATTENDING AHWAZ HEALTH CENTRES

Pregnant women are one of the main targets in health and prevention programs. Prenatal dental care is an essential process for promotion of the health status of the mother and her newborn and can be a preventive measure for delivey of low-birth weight new borns. In this cross-sectional survey, the dental health and oral hygiene status amongst 300 pregnant women were randomly selected among pregnant women attending the health centers in Ahwaz. For each person a WHO form was prepared and the teeth were examined. For data analysis tables of frequency distribution, t-test and ANOVA were used. The results showed that the mean DMFT was 6.23±3.01 in which the highest percentage belonged to the decayed teeth (3.52 ± 2.45). The attitude about oral hygiene was very low in all pregnant women (94.3%). The oral hygiene index (OHI-S) of most pregnant women (76.7%) was at moderate level. The highest mean of DMFT was in pregnant women who had the lowest level of education. In conclusion, the results of this study showed that most of the samples affected with DMFT were among pregnant women with low attitude towards oral health.