Preventive dental care plays an important role in the overall oral health of your child. The beginning of tooth decay leads to a number of problems including oral health that affects overall health. Hence, preventive dental care for your kids is very important to consider right from the appearance of your kid’s first teeth.
What is preventive dental care for kids?
For preventive oral care of your child you should guide your child to take care of his or her teeth as well as gum properly. The proper care includes brushing teeth twice in a day, flossing, eating nutritious diets, and regular visit to the Kids dentist in Melbourne to avoid major dental complications in the future. You should educate your child with proper brushing and flossing techniques. Moreover, you should also teach them good oral habits such as clean mouth after eating sweet, chocolates or any food or drinks.
What preventive dentistry means?
It is all about prevention and treatment of dental diseases. It means a healthy smile using proper dental care. For good dental health of your child, you should aware about some must-to-follow habits such as brushing methods, use of essential fluoride concentration, teeth erupting knowledge, proper nutrition and dietary habits, awareness about risk for developing cavities, sealants, education for good oral health, and need for regular dental visits.
What is the right age for children to take them to the dentist?
As suggested by ADA (the Australian Dental Association) and the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry, you should take the child to a dentist when the first tooth erupts around the age of six months or at their first birthday. If you don’t find any teeth erupted for the first one year, you should consult the dentist.
Why Need Preventive Dental Care for Kids?
Kids with poor dental health have to suffer from unbearable tooth pain that affects their diet habits, brushing habits and more. Such kids get irritated and show less interest in playing, studying, eating, and other areas of interest. Hence, it affects their routine activities badly and affects their progress. As a parent, developing healthy habits leads towards good physical and mental growth of your child.
What precautions should I take for the oral health of my baby?
- For an infant, it is necessary to wipe the teeth and gum after each feeding with gauze pad or moist washcloth.
- Sterilize the bottle properly before use it. Do not add sugary drinks or add sugar into the bottle. It may cause tooth decay. Keep a gap of an hour for each feeding and after cleaning the teeth of the baby.
- Start brushing your baby’s teeth with the beginning of the first teeth appearance with a kid’s toothbrush and water only.
- Avoid use of fluoride toothpaste for your child unless suggested by a dentist under age group of 3 years.
- Give pea-sized paste on a child’s toothbrush and avoid cover the brush.
- Warn your child to not swallow toothpaste as it can cause stains on the teeth.
How to prevent my child from “Baby Bottle Tooth Decay”?
An early baby carries or bottle tooth decay is caused by drinking sugary drinks such as sweet drinks, juices, formula drinks, etc. Bottle sucking with sugary drinks can cause tooth decay. To protect your baby from early baby caries
- Never put your kid’s pacifier, straw, spoon or other things in your mouth as it causes transfer of bacteria from your mouth to baby’s mouth that become susceptible to tooth decay.
- Make habits to drink using a cup or a straw.
How do dentists help to prevent dental diseases?
Tooth cleaning and polishing, fluoride treatments, sealants are important for preventive care of the teeth. Use of the right kind of toothpaste, toothbrush, and mouth water plays an important role in proper dental health.
Do sealants are useful treatment to protect my child from cavities?
Sealants are substances important for children having a high risk for decay. It is useful for tooth decay prevention. It is a protective coating need to apply to the teeth’s biting surface. It provides shielding against plaque and bacteria. Sealants are normally placed on the permanent back teeth of the child as those teeth are likely to cavities. The process takes only five minutes and requires cooperation of the child to sit in a still position. The sealant placement frequency will vary according to the cavity problem of the child, but normally, it should apply once per tooth each five years till the child reach at the age of 19 on permanent molars i.e. 1st and 2nd. Teeth having sealants become non-restored.
What is fluoride and does a child need fluoride supplements?
Fluoride is a mineral available in water and other form useful to prevent tooth decay as well as strengthen teeth. Your baby can get it from water. You can start giving it after six months only. It is essential to consult a dentist for requirement of additional supplement of fluoride for your baby.
Educate your children using fun methods, games, colorful brushing charts, puzzle and other activities that enhance their interest about basics of dental health care.
