The effect of dental rehabilitation on the body weight of children with failure to thrive: case reports.

Abstract

Four case reports of children with nursing caries and failure to thrive are presented. Without regard to the condition of the dentition, the various cases could be classified as organic, mixed, or nonorganic in etiology. After dental rehabilitation, all patients exhibited an acceleration of weight velocity that resulted in weights above the 5th percentile. During the period of observation, the weight velocity continued to increase with time, consistent with the "catch-up" phenomenon of growth that is observed in nutritionally deprived children.