Experience of Turkish parents about their infants’ teething

AIM: To evaluate Turkish parents' experience about their infants' teething; which symptoms they have seen and attributed to teething and how they have acted to manage these symptoms. METHODS: A questionnaire form was applied by face-to-face interview to 335 families who have children less than 18 months of age and have at least one tooth. They were asked questions to clarify the eruption time and sequence of primary teeth of their infants and whether their infants had some symptoms they attributed to teething. RESULTS: The mean eruption time of the primary teeth was 7.4 +/- 2.0 months, with a range of 3-17 months. Teeth eruption time was found similar in both genders. Teeth eruption time of the term and preterm infants was similar. (P > 0.05). The first tooth erupted was the lower central incisor in the 288 infants (86.0%) and upper central incisor in 44 infants (13.1%). Most of the families (98.8%) reported that their children had suffered from at least one of the symptoms that were mentioned in the questionnaire. The most commonly reported symptom was increase in biting, followed by irritability and fever. Of the children who were taken to a health care centre, in 78.8% the symptoms were attributed to teething and in 7.1% a bacterial infection was found and antibiotics were prescribed. CONCLUSION: When an infant at teething age has some symptoms, they may be attributed to teething but other possible causes must be ruled out first.