Oral health is a component of the global human health and is mainly determined by health behaviours of an individual and environmental (sociodemographic, economic and cultural) factors. Proper hygiene and nutritional habits, as well as systematic dental visits are of key importance for oral health (1-3). Parents play the key role and are the primary source of knowledge and skills in the development of healthy behaviours in children (4). After reaching a certain developmental level, children begin to copy other people’s behaviours. Proper models of systematic oral care, which promote general health, should be passed to children as soon as possible – not later than at the age of 3-4 years (5, 6). Therefore, it is crucial that the child’s first visit to the dentist takes place appropriately early, which is mainly aimed at parental education on health. An early visit provides an opportunity not only to check the child’s dentition, but first of all to provide parents with important guidance on proper hygiene and cariostatic eating habits, educate them on the causes and infectivity of caries, factors contributing to malocclusions, as well as to provide advice on prevention and plan future dental appointments. The knowledge provided to parents during the first visit may contribute to an increased interest in the child’s dental condition and, as a result, modify the course of carious disease (7, 8).

Dental caries is a very serious health problem in the paediatric population in Poland. It is a multifactorial disease, which may begin shortly after tooth eruption. The development of a carious lesion is conditioned by the lack of or irregular dental visits, improper oral hygiene, as well as a diet rich in carbohydrates. Dental caries is characterised by a rapid course and can lead to hard dental tissue destruction in a short time, with particularly rapid carious process observed in children up to 3 years old. There are well-known serious clinical consequences of untreated caries, such as local inflammations, focal diseases, tooth loss leading to malocclusions, and impaired speech development (9, 10). Epidemiological studies conducted by the Ministry of Health (11) as part of the program “Monitoring of oral health of the Polish population” indicate poor oral health in Polish children. Dental caries affects up to 59.1% of 3-year-olds, 79.9% of 5-year-olds, 85.6% of 6-year-olds and 90.5% of 7-year-olds. Earlier studies in Poland showed the following caries frequency for primary teeth: 45.4-77.98% in 3-year-olds, more than 80% in 3-4-year-olds and 51-66.4% in 4-year-olds (12). Such high caries raters in young children are alarming, and achieving oral health goals set by the WHO for 2020 (80% of caries-free 6-year-olds) will be difficult (13, 14). The observed health situation among Polish children is conditioned by many factors, the main one being the lack of an effective, planned preventive and curative dental care model, and low health awareness of parents (12). Parental knowledge on oral health and attitude to dental care are certainly an important determinant of dental attendance (15).

The American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry (AAPD) (16) and the American Dental Association (ASA) (17) recommend that the first dental visit should take place within 6 months of eruption of the first primary tooth, and no later than 12 months of age. Polish experts (18, 19) also emphasise in their guidelines on fluoride prophylaxis, nutrition and oral hygiene published on the website of the Polish Society of Paediatric Dentistry (http://ptsd.net.pl/wytyczne/) and the website of the Polish Alliance for a Cavity-Free Future (http://acff.pl/) that the first dental visit should take place between 6 and 12 months of age. Other sources consider 12-18 months of age as the optimal time for child’s first dental visit (20, 21). According to Argentine authors Furze and Basso (22), the first preventive dental visit should take place at 4 months of foetal life. During such a visit, the mother is educated on carious disease, its infectiousness, as well as on the fact that the mothers are the main source of transmission of Streptococcus mutans. Also, advice on oral hygiene and prophylaxis is provided. As a result, the pregnant woman pays more attention to both her own and her unborn child’s health.