This article was published in Cosmos, which is a popular science magazine, and it presented the information at a level that was more appropriate for general public consumption than it might be for a practicing clinician or a student. As a student and a future dental hygienist, I was appreciative of the fact that Merolla brought this information to light, but I was also left wishing that I could have seen a peer-reviewed journal that documented the findings in greater detail. The article was complete for a general audience and it performed its function of making pregnant women aware that oral health is a serious issue, but from a hygienist's viewpoint, I would have liked to have seen the article presented in its original scholarly form because it would have included more information about how the disease was transmitted from mother to child.
As a future dental...
Although it did not go into lengthy scientific details about the findings, the article provided enough necessary details about the importance of oral health to make the readers, including myself, aware that there was a link between oral disease and pregnancy loss. I found this article to be extremely important because I will be working with pregnant women at times. Now that I know that there is a serious and potentially fatal link between gingivitis and stillbirth, I will work towards recognizing, identifying and controlling gum disease in my patients. I will also make sure that my patients are aware of the serious nature of oral health, not for the purpose of frightening them, but to do everything in my power to make sure that they give birth to healthy infants.
