What to do if your 3-year-old child has bad breath

Bad breath is more common in adults, but children may also have bad breath. There are usually many reasons for bad breath, such as food, dental problems, and poor gastrointestinal function. First, we need to check what causes the bad breath, and then treat it symptomatically. Many people don’t know what to do if a 3-year-old child has bad breath. What should we do if a 3-year-old child has bad breath? Let’s take a look at it next.

1. What should I do if my 3-year-old child has bad breath?

Children with damp-heat in the stomach meridian will have a red tongue, yellow tongue coating, bad breath, irritability, and restless sleep. Many children also have dry stools. You can take some heat-clearing and dampness-drying medicine under the guidance of a Chinese medicine practitioner. Food accumulation type bad breath is more common in children aged 1 to 6 years old and is related to irregular diet and improper feeding.

2. What causes bad breath?

1. Food smell

Certain foods, such as garlic, onions, leeks, stinky tofu, etc., have specific odors. After eating, the remaining food in the mouth can emit a corresponding odor. When you have heat, vomiting, or hiccups, the smell of the gastrointestinal contents will often be transmitted out of the body.

2. Foreign matter corruption

Food residues remaining between teeth are decayed by bacteria and produce a foul odor.

(III) Tissue necrosis

Human tissue is mainly composed of protein, which produces odors such as hydrogen sulfide when it decomposes.

4. Bacterial Growth

Some bacteria in the oral cavity and respiratory tract decompose proteins and starches, producing a large number of bacterial metabolites such as indole, sulfhydryl and ammonia, which can cause bad breath.

5. Substances contained in blood

In diabetic ketoacidosis and uremic acidosis, the ketone and urea components in the blood increase. The blood flows through the alveoli and dissipates the ketones and decomposed urea with the gas out of the body. Therefore, the patient's mouth may have the smell of acetone or rotten apple.

3. Physiological factors

1. Food smell: such as the smell of alcohol after drinking, the smell of cigarettes after smoking, and the garlic smell left in the mouth after eating garlic.

2. Bad breath after waking up from sleep at night.

3. Hunger and long-term fasting can also cause strong bad breath.

4. Some people may experience bad breath during pregnancy and menstruation.

4. Pathological factors

1. Oral diseases: periodontal disease, caries, black hairy tongue, oral necrotizing inflammation, pericoronitis, etc.

2. Nasopharyngeal diseases: suppurative maxillary sinusitis, atrophic rhinitis, acute tonsillitis, pharyngitis, foreign bodies in the nose of children, etc.

3. Diseases of other organs in the body such as indigestion and gastritis. Abnormal odor may be caused by bronchiectasis, secondary lung infection, lung abscess, leukemia, thrombocytopenia, granulocytosis, diabetes, lead, mercury, sedative and organic poisoning.