Fig. 5

Hypothetic effect of Prenatal Total Oral Rehabilitation (PTOR) on mother’s and child’s oral health. We propose the hypothetic model of PTOR’s effect. First, PTOR helps pregnant women achieve caries-free status before delivery, which is potentially associated with an altered oral microbial community including fewer pathogenic organisms and plausible changes in immune markers. PTOR is also potentially related to a reduced vertical transmission of oral pathogens from mothers to their infants. Moreover, PTOR reduces gingival inflammation, potentially associated with host immune response, and in turn, affects the oral microbiome. Finally, women received PTOR have increased knowledge in perinatal oral health, which would improve their oral hygiene practice, and their children’s feeding, oral hygiene practice, and early infancy dental care utilization. Collectively, providing PTOR could potentially reduce early childhood caries onset