What You Should Know About Having Sealant Applied To Your Child's Teeth
It's important to teach your child good dental hygiene habits starting when the baby teeth first erupt. Establishing a pattern of regular dental visits and daily brushing will help protect your child's teeth for life. However, it may be difficult for your child to always brush effectively. That's where dental sealants come in. They help reduce the risk of developing cavities. The procedure is easy to endure, and it's certainly much less stressful and less expensive than getting a filling. Here's what you should know about this dental procedure.
Dental Sealants Fill Pits
The pits and grooves of your child's teeth are breeding grounds for bacteria because food gets stuck in them easily. If your child is not able to brush vigorously, the food may not get removed. Even if your child brushes very well, the bristles on the toothbrush may be to large to get down into the very small pits. A dental sealant is a type of liquid plastic the dentist applies to a tooth. It flows into all the grooves and pits, and then hardens. This makes the surface of the tooth smoother and less likely to trap food that feeds bacteria
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Therefore, it is common to wait for the first set of molars to fully erupt before considering dental sealants. The decision is on a tooth by tooth basis. Your child's dentist examines each tooth after it emerges through the gum. It's possible the dentist will recommend sealing a baby tooth or a front tooth. It all depends on the shape and condition of your child's teeth.
Another reason your dentist may wait to apply sealant until the molars come in is because by then your child is old enough to cooperate with the procedure. While it isn't painful, some cooperation is necessary since the tooth has to stay dry or the sealant won't adhere
Seven-year-old Carlos Smith came to Universal Pediatric Dental Clinic for his first dental appointment. During his dental visit his hygienist learned he has a sweet tooth and rather drink juice/soda than water and never turn down candy. He is a big chocolate fan, of course the gummy stuff, the Mike, cheerios and Ikes. His hygienist already see two area of caries on his primary teeth. Dr. Jonathan CalBrim, suggested dental sealants, which could help keep tooth decay at Carlos’ permanent molar as well as other teeth. His parents had no idea about caries as well as sealant. His parents have many questions and worried that information may not have been disclosed to public about sealant.
Dental care starts a few days after baby’s birth to ensure baby teeth erupt without damage from plaque. It’s possible for babies to get cavities just like anyone else, and is one of several issues many parents are concerned about.
Pediatric Dentistry is the practice of dentistry from the moment of a child’s birth through to adolescence. In short, pediatric dentists work in promoting the dental health of children as well providing their parents with the educational knowledge in sustaining their children’s oral hygiene. Normally it is advised that a visit with a dental professional should occur within the first six months of the first tooth eruption or by the time of the child’s first birthday, with latter visits taking place every six months.
These dental care professionals want to establish a feeling of trust with your child. The goal: to create a positive environment so kids can feel comfortable in the dentist’s chair at an early age.
Your goal is to protect your baby from all types of germs and bacterial infection that comes into his or her mouth. This is an advantage for you and your baby to become protected once and for all.
The purpose of this research was to prove that the School-Based Dental Sealant program could improve access to Preventive Dental Service. The authors investigated 8145 students in Framingham, Massachusetts which was considered representative of the 66190 residents living in west/ southwest of Boston. The study began after applying oral survey to all first and second-grade students in Framingham from 2000 to 2009. In this period of time, all students were screened for the number of teeth filled, number of teeth with untreated decay, number of teeth extracted, existing sealants on the first molar, and identification of first molars in need of sealant. And then the dental officials applied sealant to the molars of those students who had high potential of developing carries.
Additionally, in the article Aquafresh Tips for Mom and Dad (2015) states, “Since the enamel on your child’s tiny teeth is 50% thinner than the enamel on your teeth, once decay begins, it does more damage, more quickly. If left unchecked, it can then turn into a cavity.” Cavities are easily build up if your child isn’t being checked specially if they eat a lot of candy, cookies, and sodas like Jasmine
When it comes to your teeth, you never can be too careful. We use them every single day for chewing and eating our food. Not only that, when problems start to form in your teeth they can become extremely painful. One way that you can help to prevent tooth decay and further issues is to invest in some dental sealants.
You think you are doing everything right when it comes to your teeth. You brush regularly and limit sugary foods. Unfortunately, a trip to the dentist reveals cavities. While brushing, flossing and steering clear of cavity causing foods and beverages are the best line of defense, there are some interesting second lines of defense you may not know about for children and adults both.
Some orthodontists believe in things such as space maintainers, while others believe it’s best to let the teeth come in naturally before mechanical involvement. The focus here is spending money early on over further, more invasive and costly treatment down the road. Clinicians need to stress factors about how not having orthodontic treatment could potentially cause costly detrimental effects. For example, if the mandibular anterior teeth were crowding upon eruption we would want to point this out to our patients. Keeping that area clean may be hard to do even to this avid flossing and brushing patient. If the area is never corrected with orthodontics it will likely be an area that accumulates a lot of plaque and later calculus. Which in turn will be difficult to remove at home and could lead to caries, mobile teeth, and pain. A child may end up in mixed dentition and a dentist could recommend extraction of some of the primary teeth to allow for growth of the permanent dentition or for spacing purposes. Furthermore, sometimes patients permanent dentition even with orthodontics is going to be crowded so the removal of a certain number, determined by the dentist, of permanent teeth are to be extracted to create enough room for a healthy mouth full of functional teeth. Once again, this is a process that needs to begin early in life. A child should be monitored for growth and spacing
If you’re lucky, the only time your child’s tooth comes out will be when a baby tooth lets go, but the truth is dental emergencies can happen. It’s scary, but with the right dental treatment, your child will be just fine. The important thing is for you to stay calm while you act.
If you are considering dental sealants for your child's teeth, you are probably also wondering about child safety. Many parents are concerned about Bisphenol A (BPA) compounds, but pediatric dentists recommend using the air-tight plastic shield to seal out plaque. The results include dramatically less decay to biting surfaces, but will it negatively affect kids' health?
The other poster presentation that caught my attention was “Evaluating parents’ perception of the effects of dental sealants on children from ages 3-12 years” by Zarmina Sajjad. The objective of this study was to explore parent’s knowledge of dental sealants as a preventive care in children. I knew beforehand that dental caries is a chronic disease that could affect everyone. However, I didn’t know too much about the benefits of sealants in children. First dental sealants are a type of plastic that helps preventing tooth decay because it serves as a barrier that protects teeth from getting cavities, for
In addition to preventing caries on ‘sound’ surfaces, dental sealants have also proven to help arrest the spread of caries lesions after initiation. Sealants reduced the percentage of non-cavitated caries lesions that progressed by 71%. Dental sealants have also proven to reduce bacterial levels; in a recent study it was noted that sealants lowered bacteria levels by at least 100-fold (Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services, 2013). With the evidence of effectiveness that dental sealants can have, it makes sense for Medicaid and/or each state’s health insurance program to provide coverage for such
Dental Hygiene is very important to me and has been since I was a child, this has influenced my desire of becoming a pediatric dentist. In a personal interview i conducted with Dr.Bills she informed me of this, “Dental Hygiene is emphasized by all dentists, we want our patients to have elegant white teeth and pleasant breath”(Bills). I would like to teach children the importance of keeping their teeth brushed so that they will have a beautiful smile and healthy teeth. Pediatric Dentistry is a superb fit for me because I care about dental health and I want children to know the importance as well. It is never too early for children to learn how important dental hygiene is.