February is Children’s Dental Health month so in light of that here’s a little about children’s dental health.
Did you know that proper dental care begins before any teeth appear. That’s right. Just because you can’t see the teeth doesn’t mean they aren’t there. In fact, teeth begin to form in the third trimester of a woman’s pregnancy. When your child is born they already have 20 teeth developed in their jaw! Amazing!
Even before your baby has teeth it is a good idea to wipe your baby’s gums with a damp washcloth after feedings. This prevents the buildup of nasty bacteria. Once teeth start coming in you can use a soft child’s tooth brush or you can rub their teeth with gauze at the end of the day. There are even rubber “toothbrushes” that fit over your finger. Once your child has two teeth that touch it is time to start flossing.
Never put your baby to bed with with a bottle of juice or milk. If the sugars from the juice or milk sit on the baby’s teeth for hours, as they do while in bed, they can eat away at the enamel and you could find your baby with baby bottle mouth. Sometimes cases of baby bottle mouth are so severe that the teeth need to be pulled out and your beautiful baby will have to wait until the permanent ones grow in years down the road.
The American Dental Association recommends that you should take your child to the dentist by the time they turn one. This is really just a visit to let the dentist look in the mouth and do a modified exam while the child is sitting on your lap. The idea is that the earlier they start visiting the dentist the less fear they will have as they grow old. In reality, where we try to live, we haven’t seen a lot of 1 year olds who are happy having the dentist look in their mouth. We are happy to have you bring them in and have them sit in your lap while we make the chair go up and down. If your child is willing we will see if they will open their mouth to let us take a quick peek, but don’t expect that they will be willing to have a “modified exam.” If your child is very young and seems to be having dental problems it is best for them to be seen by a pedodontist. They specialize in children’s dentistry. We are always happy to give you a referral if that is the case.
Sometimes we hear that people think baby teeth aren’t important and when we find decay they wonder if they could just wait until the tooth falls out. This is not a good idea at all. When baby teeth decay it can cause pain and infection, just like in adult teeth. The baby teeth also hold space in the arch so that the permanent teeth can erupt properly. If a baby tooth is lost too early the adjacent teeth can collapse into the space leaving no room for the permanent tooth. So, as you can see baby teeth are important and we want to keep care of them, just like we do with permanent teeth.
Giving your child an early start on checkups and good dental hygiene is an effective way to help lower the risk of extensive dental work in the future.
www.drboyd.com
