The effect of nursing or rampant caries on height, body weight and head circumference.

In this study, the effect of nursing bottle caries and rampant caries on height, weight and head circumference was evaluated. For this purpose, 126 children, aged 3 to 5 years old, who have nursing or rampant caries were selected. One hundred twenty-six children with no caries and similar age and sex were matched as a control group. When the children who had rampant or nursing caries were evaluated in the direction of the mean weight, it was corresponding to mean weight between 25th and 50th percentiles. The mean percentile weight for control group were corresponding to mean weight between the 50th and 75th percentiles. Of the nursing or rampant caries children, 7.1% weighed less than 80% of their ideal weight, compared with only 0.7% of the control group children. When the children, who had rampant or nursing caries, were evaluated in the direction of the mean height, it was corresponding to mean height between 10th and 25th percentiles. The mean percentile height for control group were corresponding to mean height between the 25th and 50th percentiles. When the head circumference is evaluated, there was no significant statistical difference between the two groups. Since the height and weight of the control group showed a higher percentile category than the nursing or rampant caries group, (P<0.001), it can be stated that rampant or nursing caries may correlate with adversely affected growth of the body.