When assessing barriers to professional dental care in
pregnancy, only 9.6% showed high and 13.6% high or medium
anxiety on Corah’s dental anxiety score w9x, but 11.7%
reported that fear had often caused them to postpone appointments
(Table 4). Twice as many (26.9%) had delayed visits
because of cost, a disincentive mentioned by 35% of women
with no visit for at least two years, but also by 22.1% of
those with planned or actual visits in pregnancy.
Table 5 shows differences in women’s reported oral
hygiene and dental care practices in relation to how they
rated their oral health. Whilst perceived oral health showed
a clear relationship with the frequency of tooth brushing and
the use of dental floss (Table 5) and also with gingival bleeding
before pregnancy (Table 3), it was far less affected by
whether or not there was gingival bleeding during pregnancy
(Table 3). Women reporting very good oral health were more
likely to have a regular dentist, but the interval since the last
dental visit or having a dental visit during pregnancy was
not related to perceived oral health (Table 5).