ORCID

0000-0002-1637-407X (Salama), 0000-0001-7421-3381 (Al-Taiar)

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2026

DOI

10.1186/s12903-026-08079-y

Publication Title

BMC Oral Health

Volume

Advance online publication

Pages

35 pp.

Abstract

Background

Preterm birth (PTB) and low birth weight (LBW) are significant public health challenges globally, contributing to neonatal morbidity, mortality, and long-term complications. Maternal oral health has been increasingly recognized as a potential contributor to PTB and LBW, yet there is inconclusive evidence about the effectiveness of dental cleaning in preventing PTB and LBW. This study examined the association between dental cleaning during pregnancy and the prevalence of PTB and LBW using data from the Virginia Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS).

Methods

We analyzed data from Virginia PRAMS Phases 7 and 8, spanning a 10-year period from 2012 to 2022. Oral health experiences, including dental cleaning during pregnancy, were self-reported. PTB and LBW were obtained from birth certificates. Weighted logistic regression models were used to examine the association between oral health and PTB or LBW, while adjusting for potential confounders. Missing data was addressed through multiple imputation.

Results

Among 8,820 women, 9.29% (95% CI: 9.23–9.34%) experienced PTB and 7.13% (95% CI: 6.57–7.72%) delivered a LBW infant. In unadjusted analyses, dental cleaning during pregnancy was significantly associated with reduced odds of PTB (OR = 0.79; 95% CI: 0.65–0.99) and LBW (OR = 0.79; 95% CI: 0.65–0.96). After adjusting for potential confounders using both traditional multivariable models or propensity score, the associations were attenuated and lost statistical significance, although the direction of effect consistently suggested a protective role of dental cleaning.

Conclusion

Integrating preventive oral health services into prenatal care may contribute to improved birth outcomes and should remain a public health priority.

Rights

© The Authors 2026.

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original authors and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this license to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

Data Availability

Article states: "The PRAMS data (Virginia, 2012-2022) used in this study are not publicly available unless requested directly from the Virginia Department of Health, subject to approval and a data-use agreement. The authors are not permitted to share the dataset."

Original Publication Citation

Salama, M., Al-Taiar, A., McKinney, D. C., Chen, L. W., & Merchant, A. T. (2026). Examining the association of maternal oral health experiences with adverse birth outcomes: Findings from Virginia's PRAMS survey. BMC Oral Health. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12903-026-08079-y

Additional Files
12903_2026_8079_MOESM1_ESM.pdf (158 kB)
Supplementary Material 1
12903_2026_8079_MOESM2_ESM.docx (143 kB)
Supplementary Material 2
Download

Share

COinS