Your children may be using too much toothpaste, warns CDC



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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a warning to parents: Your children use too much toothpaste to brush their teeth.

According to the CDC, 40% of children ages 3 to 6 use more toothpaste than dentists recommend. The CDC and the American Dental Association recommend that children who use only a pea-sized toothpaste, while children under three years old should only use a "smear", according to the CDC.

The results are based on a self-report by parents of 5,157 children aged 3 to 15 published last week. The survey did not take into account whether children were using fluoride toothpaste or not.

Although the amount of toothpaste used by your children does not seem to be a big problem, it can actually have negative effects on their health. Using too much toothpaste can damage the enamel, for example. If children swallow too much fluoride when developing their teeth, they can develop dental fluorosis, causing mostly white marks and discoloration of teeth.

The CDC does not recommend that children start using toothpaste before the age of two. Before that, it is recommended to brush your teeth twice a day as soon as they start to grow but using only water. About 80% of the children included in the survey started brushing their teeth later than recommended by the CDC.

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