Healthcare Consultant News
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Early educators and families need to follow new oral health recommendations for children. Experts no longer recommend that children take fluoride tablets and liquid supplements. Instead, children should brush their teeth twice a day with fluoride-containing toothpaste. The amount of toothpaste should be appropriate for the child’s age. Infants use a smear of toothpaste. Children 2-5 years of age use a pea-sized amount. From then on, a small ribbon is appropriate. By 12 months of age, or 6 months after the first tooth appears, children should visit a pediatric or child-friendly dentist. Thereafter, children should visit a dentist every 6 months. The dentist should apply fluoride varnish to their teeth at the visits. Medicaid and some private health insurance will pay for these preventive dental services. The child's pediatrician may be able to temporarily provide these services to healthy children up to age 5 if dental services are not available.
More details about preventive practices for oral health for children will be in the Winter 2011 issue of Health Link ONLINE. Go to the ECELS home page at www.ecels-healthychildcarepa.org to sign up to receive an E-Mail Alert from ECELS when a new issue of Health Link ONLINE is available on the ECELS website. Note that Pennsylvania early childhood educators can use the ECELS Self-Learning Module Online-Oral Health. This module addresses ECERS-ITERS: Personal Care Routines. Successful completion meets K7C3-77 for 2 hours of state-authorized credit as well as the STAR Level 2 Performance Standard for Health and Safety. The module is on the ECELS website in the section on Child Care Provider Training.
Information on the new oral health recommendations was contributed by Eve J. Kimball, MD-PA AAP Chapter Oral Health Advocate and Child Care Health Consultant. Please feel free to reproduce this Health Capsule, unchanged, in your newsletters or other communications. 12/9/2010
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Information on Outdoor Play in Cold Weather
Click here for cold weather play information
Click here for outdoor play information
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Tips to Portect your Home
Click here for tips to protect your home!
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ERS Diaper Changing Procedures
Click here for the ERS diaper changing procedures
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The Healthy Child Care America program at the American Academy of Pediatrics posted "Helping Families Cope with Separation" as the November Standard of the Month. This is the currently featured standard from Caring for Our Children, the national health and safety performance standards for out-of-home child care. The posted information includes the standard, the rationale for the standard, comments related to implementation, references, and quotes from practitioners and child care health consultants describing how they successfully implemented the standard in an early education and child care program. At this website, you can subscribe to a listserv for an e-mail notice each time another standard is featured on the Healthy Child Care America website. For this month's standard and to sign up for the notification listserv, go to www.healthychildcare.org/StandardOfTheMonth.html. - Susan S. Aronson, MD, FAAP - ECELS Pediatric Advisor
To download and print a copy of this information please click here.
