Your mouth

Your mouth is the beginning of your digestive tract – it gets the whole process of taking nutrients from your food going. It is made up of lots of different parts – your tongue, the teeth and saliva – all of which have an important role to play in the jobs your mouth has to do.

Your tongue is a very hard working muscle! Actually, it is lots of little groups of muscles that go in different directions to do lots of different jobs. You use your tongue to talk, to chew, to swallow, to sing and to taste.

Your tongue is very stretchy and you use it with your teeth to make lots of different sounds that make up words. The front of your tongue is also used when you eat – it helps to move the food around your mouth and back towards your throat so your back teeth can really break it up. The top of your tongue is not smooth like the underneath – it has lots of humps and bumps called papillae (stick out your tongue and have a look in the mirror!). These papillae are like the end of your boots – they help to crab the food and stop it slipping while you chew.

When the food has been really well chewed and mixed with saliva, your back muscles in your tongue help you swallow. You don’t however swallow your tongue! It is tied to the bottom of your mouth by a thin piece of tissue called the frenulum. Have a look in the mirror and look underneath your tongue. Do you see your frenulum?

The papillae on your tongue are where you find your taste buds. When you were born, you had about 10,000 taste buds, but as you get older, this number will become less and less. When you are old enough to retire, you may only have 5,000 taste buds, which is why some foods taste stronger to you than they would to your parents or grandparents!

Taste buds can pick our sweet, sour, bitter and salty flavours on different parts of your tongue – have a look at where this is on the diagram.

Each bud has lots of tiny hairs that can sense flavours and send messages to your brain. Sometimes these are good but sometimes these are bad – maybe you don’t like a flavour or it is something dangerous to eat or drink. When you are cold, your taste buds don’t work as well so you may be able to eat or drink a flavour you don’t normally like!

Teeth

Your teeth have two very important jobs – they help you to speak by working with your teeth to make the proper sounds of letters and words and, even more importantly, your teeth allow you to eat properly!

You have two sets of teeth in your life – your baby teeth which would have appeared by the time you were about 3 and your adult teeth which will normally appear by the time you are 13. You have about 20 baby teeth and these fall out naturally to make way for your adult teeth. You will have more adult teeth – 28 and then 4 more called wisdom teeth which appear in the back of your mouth when you are an adult to make a full set of 32 teeth. You must take very good care of your adult teeth as if they fall out or have to be taken out by the dentist, they will not grow back!

Your teeth have several different shapes and also do different jobs. Have a look in a mirror as you continue reading to see the shape of each type of your teeth!

Your front teeth and the teeth on either side on top and on the bottom are called incisors – these are like scissors as they help you cut and tear your food. The pointy teeth on either side of your incisors are the canineteeth. There are only four of these, two on top and two on bottom. Canine teeth help the incisors tear up the food you eat.

Your side teeth are called the premolars and they have a completely different shape to the sharper incisors and canines. Premolars are big and square, with ridges to help them break up and grind your food. You have four of these on top and four on bottom. Right at the back, you will see your molars. They have the same shape as the premolars although they are wider and stronger to allow them to really crush your food into tiny pieces. Like the premolars, there are four of these on top and four on bottom.

When you are older, you will see teeth very like the molars at the very back of your mouth, one each, right in the corners. Because they only arrive when you are older, they are called your wisdom teeth. Wisdom teeth don’t have much of a job as they are so far back in your mouth. They can sometimes cause problems so they are quite often just taken out by the dentist.

What your tooth is made of

Your tooth hides a big secret – the part of the tooth that you can see, the crown, is just the beginning. This area is made of enamel and is very tough as it needs to protect the inner parts of the tooth. Underneath the enamel is dentine which makes up most of your tooth. It is also quite tough, but not quite as tough as the enamel. The enamel and dentine protect the very inside of the tooth, the pulp. The pulp is where the nerve and blood vessels of the tooth is kept. The nerves can tell you if something is very cold or very hot while the blood vessels bring nutrients to the tooth and keep it healthy. Underneath your gum, keeping your tooth attached to your jaw, is the root. You only see the root of your tooth if it falls out or has to be removed by the dentist!

Treating Teeth Kindly

Your teeth are very strong but you do need to take care of them. The best way to do this is to brush them at least twice a day (or even ever time you eat) and to use floss before you go to bed. This gets rid of any tiny pieces of food that may be stuck and also plaque – a bacterial goo that sticks to your teeth and causes cavities.

To keep your teeth in tip-top condition, it is also extremely important to visit your dentist regularly. Your dentist will be able to look at lots of parts of your teeth that you never see and tell you if there is any decay or other problems.

At your dentist, you can also get all kinds of advice on how to keep your teeth healthy like – don’t eat lots of sugary foods or drinks, clean your teeth every single day and come back to visit regularly!

Saliva

When you eat, or even if you can smell a food you like, you mouth will water! This is saliva that is produced in the mouth to help us make dry food moist (which makes it easier to swallow). It also starts the digestion of the food you eat as it contains an enzyme that breaks down the food you eat. You need to chew your food well to ensure it is in very small pieces and also that it stays in your mouth long enough for the enzymes to work!

Your saliva also has a very important role in keeping us healthy. It contains a very weak antiseptic that helps fight infections in your mouth and can also kill bacteria that cause tooth decay.