What are the reasons why children have bad breath?

Bad breath is a common phenomenon in today's society. It has a huge impact on people's lives, especially in interpersonal communication. Patients with bad breath are often excluded and isolated. Bad breath has a greater impact on minors and can cause psychological and physical illnesses in children. Let’s take a look at the reasons why children have bad breath.

1. Causes

(1) Improper feeding causes gastrointestinal dysfunction.

(2) Gastrointestinal inflammation: Infants and young children eat food contaminated by bacteria, which causes gastrointestinal inflammation.

(3) The misuse of antibiotics causes an imbalance in the gastrointestinal flora, in which normal bacteria, such as lactobacilli, are inhibited while miscellaneous bacteria grow and multiply in large numbers.

(4) As the weather gets colder, the body’s resistance decreases and catching a cold can cause indigestion.

2. Classification

(1) Sour taste is the most common type of bad breath in children and is often seen in babies with gastrointestinal dysfunction. In addition, rotten egg smell in children's mouth often indicates indigestion and liver disease. Putrid odor is mostly caused by oral inflammation and poor oral hygiene habits.

(2) The smell of rotten apple is a sign of ketoacidosis. Purulent bad breath is mostly caused by ulcers, erosions, and suppuration in the lesions of diseases such as foreign bodies in the baby's nasal cavity, atrophic rhinitis, sinusitis, purulent tonsillitis, lung abscess, and bronchiectasis. If there is a bloody smell in the child's mouth, it is usually caused by bleeding diseases such as nosebleeds and gastrointestinal bleeding.

Clinical manifestations

The most common bad breath in children is usually caused by indigestion, which can be divided into simple indigestion and toxic indigestion. Common symptoms of simple indigestion are diarrhea less than 10 times a day, yellow or green stools with little water, abdominal bloating, occasional vomiting, and sometimes fever but not too high. The child has a poor appetite but is in good spirits.