The integration of dental health education with prenatal education

Abstract

The purpose of this project was to assess the type and amount of dental health education currently being offered in the prenatal classes sponsored by the Boston Association for Childbirth Education (BACE), and to develop a dental educational aid for the prenatal educators if a need was found to exist. A survey conducted on BACE educators revealed that the current status of dental education in the prenatal classes was minimal, the instructors' self-assessed dental knowledge was "average", and there was a high interest for including dental information into their future prenatal classes. As a result of these findings, a 40 page dental resource entitled A Dental Handbook for Prenatal Educators was developed. Its use was explained to the prenatal educators during a workshop session. A telephone interview was conducted on the workshop participants two weeks after the workshop. Findings indicated that the Dental Handbook was an excellent educational resource in terms of format, ease of reading and clarity of information, and that the workshop participants' self-assessed level of dental knowledge had unanimously risen to "above average".