Maternal and Child Dentistry

Abstract

In the city of Sao Paulo, on 21 August 2014, under the coordination of Prof. Fabián Calixto Fraiz, the Maternal and Child Dentistry programmes of seven Latin American countries were presented: Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela.

From the accounts of the representatives of each association, it became clear that the experiences of oral health care for mothers and children in Latin America present a great diversity of strategies, protocols and activities. These specificities respond to the different social, economic, cultural, political and administrative contexts of each country.

On the one hand, recognising this rich diversity will allow the formulation of proposals that meet local demands more efficiently and effectively; on the other hand, identifying similar challenges and finding points of convergence in our practice will allow the formulation of integrative proposals.

The experiences reported indicate that strategies for maternal and child care require conceptual advances, which will emerge from a profound and constant reflection on the role of dentistry in the field of health promotion and education, assistance and training of human resources for a transdisciplinary approach to this population group.