This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Submit a response
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me when eLetters are posted
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Right arrow Citation Map
Services
Right arrow E-mail this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My File Cabinet
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via CrossRef
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Macknin, M. L.
Right arrow Articles by Skibinski, C.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Macknin, M. L.
Right arrow Articles by Skibinski, C.
Related Collections
Right arrow Premature & Newborn
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Facebook   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

PEDIATRICS Vol. 105 No. 4 April 2000, pp. 747-752

Symptoms Associated With Infant Teething: A Prospective Study

Received May 17, 1999; accepted Oct 28, 1999.

Michael L. Macknin*, Marion PiedmonteDagger , Jonathan Jacobs*, and Christine SkibinskiDagger

From the * Departments of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine and Dagger  Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Cleveland, Ohio.

Context.  Studies of infant teething have been retrospective, small, or conducted on institutionalized infants.

Objectives.  To conduct a large, prospective study of healthy infants to determine which symptoms may be attributed to teething and to attempt to predict tooth emergence from an infant's symptoms.

Design.  Prospective cohort.

Setting.  Clinic-based pediatric group practice.

Patients.  One hundred twenty-five consecutive well children of consenting Cleveland Clinic employees.

Outcome Measures.  Parents daily recorded 2 tympanic temperatures, presence or absence of 18 symptoms, and all tooth eruptions in their infants, from the 4-month well-child visit until the child turned 1 year old.

Results.  Daily symptom data were available for 19 422 child-days and 475 tooth eruptions. Symptoms were only significantly more frequent in the 4 days before a tooth emergence, the day of the emergence, and 3 days after it, so this 8-day window was defined as the teething period. Increased biting, drooling, gum-rubbing, sucking, irritability, wakefulness, ear-rubbing, facial rash, decreased appetite for solid foods, and mild temperature elevation were all statistically associated with teething. Congestion, sleep disturbance, stool looseness, increased stool number, decreased appetite for liquids, cough, rashes other than facial rashes, fever over 102°F, and vomiting were not significantly associated with tooth emergence. Although many symptoms were associated with teething, no symptom occurred in >35% of teething infants, and no symptom occurred >20% more often in teething than in nonteething infants. No teething child had a fever of 104°F and none had a life-threatening illness.

Conclusions.  Many mild symptoms previously thought to be associated with teething were found in this study to be temporally associated with teething. However, no symptom cluster could reliably predict the imminent emergence of a tooth. Before caregivers attribute any infants' signs or symptoms of a potentially serious illness to teething, other possible causes must be ruled out.teething, tooth eruption, teeth, deciduous dentition. .


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Facebook Facebook   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 CLIN PEDIATRHome page
L. S. Nield, J. P. Stenger, and D. Kamat
Common Pediatric Dental Dilemmas
Clinical Pediatrics, March 1, 2008; 47(2): 99 - 105.
[PDF]

Home page
 BMJHome page
M. South
On teething symptoms
BMJ, February 1, 2003; 326(7383): 282 - 282.
[Full Text]

Home page
 BMJHome page
M. Wake and K. Hesketh
Teething symptoms: cross sectional survey of five groups of child health professionals
BMJ, October 12, 2002; 325(7368): 814 - 814.
[Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 JWatch GeneralHome page
Symptoms Associated with Infant Teething
Journal Watch (General), May 19, 2000; 2000(519): 4 - 4.
[Full Text]