Systematic review suggests a relationship between moderate to late preterm birth and early childhood caries

Abstract

Aim: The aim was to examine the association between moderate to late preterm birth and the prevalence of early childhood caries. Methods: We searched the PubMed, Scopus, Cochrane Trials Register databases up to February 28, 2020. Two independent reviewers screened the papers for relevance, extracted data and assessed the risk of bias. A random-effects meta-analysis was performed to pool the prevalence of early childhood caries by gestational age. Results: The authors identified 14 studies covering 210,691 children. They were published from 2007-2020 and included birth cohorts, cross-sectional, register-based and case-control studies. We assessed eight of them as having low or moderate risk of bias. The median caries prevalence was 48.8% among children born moderate to late preterm compared to 20.5% for those born full term. The pooled overall odds ratio was 1.48 (95% confidence interval 1.16-1.89; P