Oral hygiene is crucial
Oral hygiene is the art and science of cleaning the mouth, gums, teeth and tongue. Proper dental hygiene is rewarded with oral health, bodily health, and a lack of gingivitis and periodontal disease; improper teeth cleaning leads to oral diseases and potentially death.
What is Oral Hygiene?
Oral hygiene is more than the twice annual teeth cleaning you receive in the dentist’s chair. It is more than the at home tooth whitening kit you purchase in the hopes of making your pearly whites more luminescent. Instead, it is a daily ritual helps to prevent gingivitis, a host of oral diseases, and of course bad breath. You could also use some natural products like Xylitol to keep your teeth white and healthy.
Why is Dental Hygiene Important at Every Age?
Bacteria are a part of life and digestion. They are in the mouth from the first days of life and will continue to be there until the last day. Bacteria help with the digestive process, but in so doing they attack the teeth in the mouth by virtue of their metabolic secretions. Infants and toddlers need to have dental hygiene assistance, and even younger children need to have someone who helps them with their oral hygiene procedures. Even once teeth have fallen out in old age, oral hygiene is a crucial aspect of keeping the oral cavity – and the body – healthy.

Common Practices of Oral Hygiene
- Visit your dentist twice a year. This is the first and foremost practice of proper oral hygiene. The professional can assess any problems that need fixing, and also prevent smaller oversights from becoming serious problems.
- Brush your teeth and gums twice a day. Another practice of dental hygiene is the daily tooth brushing. It needs to be done with a working toothbrush – not one that has been around long enough to be worn down – and fluoride toothpaste. Twice a day is a minimum; the American Dental Associations (ADA) also suggests tooth brushing after snacks and meals.
- Scrape your tongue and floss your teeth. Protein metabolizing bacteria like to congregate on the back of the tongue, but a tongue scraper can get rid of them quite easily. A gentle scraping just before bedtime will get remove them from your mouth. Flossing your teeth once a day removes plaque buildup between your teeth. No matter what the advertisements say, toothbrushes cannot reach completely through the spaces of the teeth.
- Use mouthwash twice a day to get rid of more bacteria. Using a bacteria killing mouth wash goes a long ways to freshening the breath and ensuring that the bacteria attacking your teeth are greatly curtailed in number.

Why a Simple Mistake in Dental Hygiene Can Kill You
All the foregoing you know and have known for a while now. Nonetheless, the sheer numbers of cavity filled mouths and halitosis suffering individuals showcase that oral hygiene is not practiced to its full potential. Perhaps this is because you did not know that a simple mistake in your dental hygiene might kill you.
The Clinical Microbiology Reviews report that — although further study is indicated – there is a very likely tie between periodontal disease and systemic disease. In plain English, this means that letting your oral hygiene go by the wayside means letting bacteria roam free in your mouth, lead to infections, and having these infections cause heart disease, bacterial pneumonia, and also complications with diabetes.
[…] When you become pregnant it is very important for you to take excellent care of your teeth. You will notice that there are some dentists out there are will not assist you with dental procedures until your term is over. However, this is even more of an incentive for you to make sure that you keep up with your dental routine. […]