Title

Management of early childhood caries through parental diet counselling: A pilot study in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India

Authors

Bharti Peshwani^1,*, Pankaj Goel¹, Sana Anwar², Anindo Majumdar², Ashish Khandelwal¹, Sangeeta Teleti¹, Shweta Kumari¹ & Taiba Shaikh¹

Affiliation

¹Department of Dentistry, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India; ²Department of Community and Family Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India; *Corresponding author

Email

Bharti Peshwani - E-mail: Office.dentalsurgery@aiimsbhopal.edu.in

Pankaj Goel - E-mail: head.dentalsurgery@aiimsbhopal.edu.in

 Sana Anwar - E-mail: sana.phd2022@aiimsbhopal.edu.in

Anindo Majumdar - E-mail: anindo.cfm@aiimsbhopal.edu.in

Ashish Khandelwal - E-mail: ashish.sr2025@aiimsbhopal.edu.in

Sangeeta Teleti - E-mail: sangeeta.sr2025@aiimsbhopal.edu.in

Shweta kumari - E-mail: shweta.sr2025@aiimsbhopal.edu.in

Taiba Shaikh - E-mail: taiba.jr2024@aiimsbhopal.edu.in

Article Type

Research Article

Date

Received April 1, 2026; Revised April 30, 2026; Accepted April 30, 2026, Published April 30, 2026

Abstract

Untreated early childhood caries (ECC) is a significant global public health condition associated with pain, infection, sleeps disturbances and impaired psychosocial development. Therefore, it is of interest to evaluate the effectiveness of parental dietary counselling in managing Early Childhood Caries (ECC) among 39 children (≤6 years) at a tertiary care hospital in Bhopal. Diet was assessed using the Starting the Conversation (STC) questionnaire and a 24-hour diet diary, showing reduction after one year. There was a significant decrease in STC scores, sugar exposure and number of decayed teeth (p < 0.0001), with birth order exposure influencing liquid sugar exposure. Thus, parental dietary counselling effectively reduces sugar exposure and caries progression, supporting its role in ECC prevention and management.

Keywords

Diet counselling (DC), diet diary, dental caries, DMFT index, dietary habits, caries prevention

Citation

Peshwani et al. Bioinformation 22(4): 2310-2315 (2026)

Edited by

P Kangueane

ISSN

0973-2063

Publisher

Biomedical Informatics

License

This is an Open Access article which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. This is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.