Praktické lekárnictvo 3/2020

Impact of pregnancy on the onset of periodontal diseases

During pregnancy, the female’s body has to deal with number of changes, including hormonal changes which negatively affect the oral health of women. These changes often lead to even periodontal inflammation itself. It is proven that up to 30-75 per cent of women suffer from such problems and the inflammation can arise from previous untreated inflammations or healthy parodont can be damaged. The aim of this study is to characterize physiological changes during pregnancy, and to define basic principles of oral care, and also to figure out which phase of pregnancy is essential for pregnant women in terms of the changes of oral health. Another aim is to analyze the medication of female patients, and to find out which of available products are used to eliminate their problems. The most frequent symptoms and treatments when having oral cavity problems were collected by the questionnaire survey method, and were consequently processed into graphs and tables. The majority of female respondents were women aged between 20 and 30, representing 38 per cent. 40 per cent of the respondents experienced changes in oral cavity during the second trimester, 75 per cent of the women had typical symptoms such as more intense gum sensitivity and bleeding during toothbrushing. 67 per cent of the patients suffered from dryness in their oral cavity, and 50 per cent had white spots on their tongue during their pregnancy. The dentist and the pharmacist and the gynaecologist, all of them, play an important part in the oral heath of pregnant women so they should educate women about appropriate products and procedures used in oral cavity diseases.

Keywords: pregnancy, community pharmacist, dentist, gynaecologist, therapy