The Daily Telegraph
Reporter: Danielle Le Messurier
The state’s peak dentistry body is urging athletes and parents of kids who play a team sport to guard against expensive dental damage ahead of the winter season.
It comes as the rate of oral health hospitalisations for injury in NSW children aged 0-14 years has risen by 32 per cent over a decade – from 17.4 persons per 100,000 in 2007-08 to 23.1 in 2017-18.
Chipped or knocked-out teeth, cut lips and tongues, and even broken jaws are just some of the serious injuries that can be prevented by using a custom-made mouthguard, according to the Australian Dental Association (ADA) NSW.
Vice-President Dr Michael Jonas said even non-contact sports like cricket, basketball, netball, touch, football, skateboarding and soccer, carry a real risk of accidental collision which can result in dental trauma.
“People always think rugby union and football and the like but mouthguards go much further than that,” he said.
“If you’re going to run into something at speed or it’s going to hit you, you should be having an added insurance policy which is having a professionally-fitted mouthguard.””
Sports-related injuries account for almost 40 per cent of dental injuries yet only 36 per cent of Australians wear a mouthguard while playing contact sport, according to the ADA.
