WORLD JOURNAL OF ADVANCE
HEALTHCARE RESEARCH

Titah Rahayu*, Isa Ma’Rufi and Ristya Widi Endah Yani

ABSTRACT

Teeth and oral cavity have an important role in nutritional intake. Pain and discomfort associated with untreated caries can decrease the ability to chew, resulting in inadequate nutritional intake and thus linear growth. Increased pro-inflammatory cytokines as the body's response to chronic infection to the consequences of untreated caries can affect bone growth during the prenatal and postnatal periods. This study aimed to investigate the effect of dental caries on the stunting occurrence in under five-year children who were registered in the birth cohort born from 2014-2015 at Klabang Public Health Center using a case-control nested in cohort study design. 42 stunting and 42 normal children were matched age and gender, obtained by purposive sampling from a total of 317 children. The distribution of respondents showed that more than half were male (66.7%), and have a high caries level 54,8%. The def-t index of case and control groups were 7.40±2.84 and 4.52 ± 2.04, respectively. The result of Mc Nemar test showed that dental caries were a risk factor for stunting (COR = 1.222; 95% CI=0.263-5.682; p=0.000). After being controlled with confounders in multivariable logistic regression analysis, high caries level was the most dominant risk factor for stunting (AOR = 5.4; 95% CI=1.95-14.95; p=0.001). It could be concluded that healthy teeth and mouth are important for general health. Dental procedures as the curative and rehabilitative efforts in Integrated Health Post for Child (Posyandu) are recommended to reduce the negative impact of dental caries in linear growth.