Abstract – Objective: Despite a marked improvement in oral health of Australian children over the last 30 years, severe early childhood caries (S-ECC) affects up to 17% of 2- to 3-year-old children with some requiring hospitalization and invasive treatment. This provided a compelling rationale to develop and test an oral health promotion programme which aimed to
reduce this unnecessary suffering. The purpose of this study was to test the efficacy of an oral health promotion programme for the parents of infants, starting during the pregnancy, using a randomized controlled trial.