Child Rearing Process Related to Oral Health of 0-3 Year-old Children: Case Studies in a Community in Thepa District, Songkhla Province
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Date
2010-09-01
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Journal of the Dental Association of Thailand
Abstract
Early childhood caries (ECC) is an important problem at the national and community levels of Thailand. Not only ECC is related to the biological factors, but it is also related to social and cultural factors which influencing child rearing process. The objective of this study was to study social and cultural factors that influence child rearing process related to the oral health of children aged 0-3 years in Thai-Buddhist and Thai-Muslim rubber plant growers’ community in one village in Thepa district, Songkhla province. A qualitative study using case studies method was performed. Nine families (4 Thai-Buddhist and 5 Thai-Muslim families) were included in the study. The results showed that social and cultural factors influencing child rearing process in this community included: 1) the “Forty release” value,causing short breast feeding period in Thai–Buddhists (20 days to 5 months), 2) “Respect of the elderly” value, influencing their child rearing process to follow the beliefs and practices of their mothers and ancestors, and 3) the belief that “Right breast is tissue, left breast is water”, causing the mothers to not realize the need for having their children drink water after drinking their breast milk. In addition, the way of life of the rubber plant growers made mothers have less time to take care of their children between early morning and noon because they had to work in the rubber plantations. The easy access to the grocery store in the village and the giving of snacks to the children by their siblings and relations influenced frequent snack consumption of children. These factors were not significantly different between Thai-Buddhists and Thai-Muslims except the value of “Forty release”, which influenced Thai-Buddhists more than Thai-Muslims in this study. The limitation of this study was that few case studies in only one small village were included in the study. Therefore, it cannot be generalized, but it may be transferable to a similar population. However, the results of this study indicate that the influence of social and cultural factors on the child-rearing process should be considered when conducting preventive and promotive oral health programs for children aged 0-3 years. Further qualitative studies in other communities and quantitative studies with larger sample sizes are suggested.
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Journal of the Dental Association of Thailand; Vol. 59 No.4 October-December 2009; 233-244