Norway plays tooth fairy and seeks milk teeth donations

The Norwegian Tooth Bank is requesting milk teeth from 100,000 children in Norway – which will mean it’ll become the biggest tooth bank in the world.

They need them to gain information about environmental influences and nutrition in the foetus and in early childhood.

The Tooth Bank is a sub-project in the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (MoBa), and is a collaborative project between the Norwegian Institute of Public Health and the University of Bergen.

Soon, more than 100,000 babies and children will be taking part in MoBa.

The new Tooth Bank, MoBaTann, is encouraging all parents who are taking part in MoBa to deposit one or more of their child’s milk teeth to the new ‘bank.”
 
MoBa is collecting large amounts of information about each mother’s diet and environment through pregnancy with the use of questionnaires, plus blood and urine samples from both parents.
The children are followed as they grow up with a series of questionnaires.

This information, together with the milk teeth, will give knowledge about the effect environmental pollutants have on children’s health.

‘Milk teeth can give important information on the cause of diseases and therefore how disease can be prevented,’ says project leader for Tooth Bank MoBaTann, Helene Meyer Tvinnereim, at the University of Bergen.

‘Globally, the Tooth Bank will be unique because of the link to the large amount of information in MoBa. If we can collect milk teeth from 100,000 children we will definitely be the largest in the world.’

Parents who are taking part in MoBa receive an invitation to the Tooth Bank when children are six years and nine months.

‘Interest from parents has been great since the first invitations were sent out in February and the first milk teeth have begun to arrive.

‘We are asking for one or more teeth from every child,’ she added.

Substances that are built into tooth tissue during tooth development will mostly remain there so they’ll act as a ‘black-box’ recording of what the mother and child have been exposed to.

These teeth have almost unlimited durability if they are stored dry, so that the tooth’s value will remain for future research.

The milk teeth will be kept in envelopes in secure storage boxes at the University of Bergen.

They will be anonymous, only identified by a barcode.

Favorite
Get the most out of your membership by subscribing to Dentistry CPD
  • Access 600+ hours of verified CPD courses
  • Includes all GDC recommended topics
  • Powerful CPD tracking tools included
Register for webinar
Share
Add to calendar