Three Common Procedures Offered by a Kid Friendly Dentist

A kid friendly dentist spends most of their time educating parents about proper oral hygiene for their children, performing preventative treatments, and addressing potential problems detected during routine visits.

Tooth decay is the leading reason children need dental treatments. Procedures like the application of dental sealants, teeth cleanings, and fluoride treatments are used by our kid friendly dentist to keep the mouths of young patients healthy.

Three popular procedures provided by our kid friendly dentist

Children should be taken to a dentist as soon as their first tooth erupts or before their first birthday. While babies are born without any visible teeth, their primary and secondary teeth are already developed in the womb, so good dental care should start as soon as they are born.

Some of the popular procedures dentists perform on children include:

1. Fluoride treatment

Fluoride treatments help to remineralize teeth and protect them against decay. The procedure is safe for children as young as a year old and protects teeth from decay for as long as six months. Fluoride treatments for children typically involve using a varnish to coat teeth. This prevents the child from swallowing the fluoride since it dries up quickly. It is then brushed off the child’s teeth in four to twelve hours. These varnishes are also flavored so children do not mind their taste.

Fluoride treatments work best when combined with good oral hygiene. The procedure often involves the parent holding the child on their lap while the dentist paints the varnish. It only takes a few minutes to complete.

2. Dental sealants

Sealants involve coating teeth with composite resins that form a protective barrier on their grooves and fissures. They protect against tooth decay for up to four years, and additional layers of sealants can be added to teeth as needed.

The American Dental Association recommends coating all of a child’s molars at a minimum since they are more prone to decay than other teeth. Their location in the back of the mouth also makes them more difficult to clean, increasing their risk of decay. Parents should consider having all of their children’s teeth covered with sealants for maximum protection against cavities.

3. Space maintainer placement

A child’s risk of losing one of their baby teeth prematurely goes up once they become mobile. Many children also have a habit of biting anything they can pick up, potentially damaging some of their teeth if they bite on something hard.

While there’s a common misconception that baby teeth are not important since they will eventually be replaced by permanent teeth, primary teeth hold space for permanent ones, helping them erupt properly. Space maintainers are used to hold the space left by baby teeth that fall out prematurely, preventing the remaining teeth from becoming misaligned and helping the growth of the permanent replacement.