Children as young as four are having all of their baby teeth removed because of poor oral health, dentists say.
Hundreds of youngsters - some yet to attend school - are forced to undergo surgery to have rotting teeth removed or root canal.
In the worst cases, children are put on intravenous antibiotics to save their lives.
Yesterday, an Ipswich woman was jailed for 12 months after pleading guilty to child cruelty.
Her nine-year-old daughter had 12 teeth extracted because she had given the girl only cordial to drink and had failed to take her to a dentist for more than three years.
Ipswich District Court was told the girl had had a gum abscess that was draining pus and found eating painful.
The Australian Dental Association says 5 per cent of Australian children have extensive early childhood caries (decay or crumbling of a tooth).
Brisbane pediatric dentist Dr Vivienne Linnett sees many of the worst cases.
"I've had children who've needed to have most of their baby teeth removed and children with fat faces because of dental abscesses," Dr Linnett said.
"That can make the children very unwell, worse case scenario [is it is] life threatening.
Dr Livett said she had put pre-preschoolers who needed numerous rotting teeth removed under general anesthetic because the trauma was too much for them to handle.
"It makes me feel sad for the children," she said.
"After a day of operating on little 3- and 4-year-olds, I feel sorry for the children."
Dr Philippa Sawyer, who chairs a national Australian Dental Association oral health committee, said there could be more children in the community with disease-ridden teeth that authorities did not know about.
"We don't really know if [the 5 per cent figure] is the full extent of things because if you never see children, you never know what's really going on," Dr Sawyer said.
"You ask any public health service, they've seen really decayed [children's] teeth. It's not unusual that they have to take out all 24 baby teeth."
To add to a child's embarrassment, most of those who have teeth removed are left with gaping holes in their mouth until their adult teeth come through.
"In a mouth that's badly looked after, to put dentures in there, that's going to cause more problems than were in there before," Dr Sawyer said.
The situation was worse in non-fluoridated areas and among children from low socio-economic backgrounds.
However, Dr Sawyer said there were children represented across all groups.
"People overlook dental neglect every day," she said.
"[They think] it's just teeth and what does it matter, they're only baby teeth, they're going to fall out.
"That's a shocking attitude."
Dr Linnett, who works at Brisbane Pediatric Dentistry in Eight Mile Plains, said parents were usually to blame because they fed their children the wrong food and drink and failed to properly brush their kids' teeth.
However, she said a lack of education meant many parents did not know they were causing so much damage.
"It's often due to inappropriate feeding, for example, children who are bottle-fed with sugar solutions ... or breastfed through the night time," Dr Linnett said.
"A lot of parents [who give their] children juice, think it's healthy, it's actually just another sugary drink."
Dr Linnett recommends children:
- Brush their teeth twice a day (with parents' assistance)
- Use toothpaste with fluoride
- Decrease processed carbohydrates from their diet
- Reduce fruit intake
- Eat no more than five times a day
- Have regular dental check-ups
source: brisbanetimes
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