First Dental Examination
It is recommended that the first dental examination be performed after the first milk tooth erupts (usually between the ages of 6 months and 1 year). It is very important for children to meet the dentist in a fun play environment without feeling any pain, so that they can go to the dentist comfortably throughout their lives.
What does the dentist do in the first examination?
How to clean your baby’s mouth and teeth with which brush and paste
Prevention of bacterial transmission from mother to baby
Limits on the use of feeding bottles and pacifiers
Harmful habits such as lip and finger sucking
Explaining the oral and dental development of the child, the necessity of visiting the dentist at which intervals
Parents are informed about the nutritional and preventive measures that can be taken to prevent dental caries.
Are there any special precautions that I as a parent or carer should take for the oral health of my baby/child?
The oral care of parents and carers affects the oral health of children. Caries-causing bacteria settle in the mouth after birth. In order to minimize “contamination”, the caregivers of the child should also take care of their oral hygiene.
The use of spoons by parents or carers to taste or check the temperature of children’s food or blowing on food to cool it down can cause “contamination”. Particular attention should be paid to this from the 18th month onwards, when the first milk molars erupt.
In addition, white, brown and black stains that may frequently occur on children’s teeth should be checked.
Oral and Dental Health in Infants and Children
The foundations of oral dental health are laid in childhood. Preventive methods and medical examination are important in the period of deciduous dentition.
Because milk teeth are the guide for the permanent teeth to be replaced, as well as making the necessary sounds for children to feed and speak.
Oral and dental care of children should be started before their teeth erupt and should be continued in accordance with your child’s developmental period.
In accordance with the age of our children, regular dentist controls should be visited in order to be guided correctly about what parents should do and to protect their teeth against decay.
Toothache and Treatment in Children
Although milk teeth look like tiny copies of permanent teeth, they have important structural differences. The outer hard layer of the milk teeth, which we call enamel, is much softer than the permanent teeth and can decay much faster. In addition, since the inner layers contain more and wider canals, microorganisms can quickly affect the living parts of the milk teeth.
It should not be thought that milk teeth do not have decay or do not need treatment because they are not painful. Although the structure is different, similar to permanent teeth, tooth filling and canal treatment should be performed if necessary.
Apart from all these hard tissues, since the nerve endings in the teeth of children are different, children may experience pain as a result of tooth decay in the later stages of caries.
When filling treatment is performed on deciduous teeth, decayed tissue can be removed painlessly with dental laser and the deciduous tooth is filled with a material that is suitable for the structure of the deciduous tooth and will be removed from the mouth with the tooth when the time comes.
In milk tooth canal treatment applications, while the roots of the tooth are cleaned, microorganisms are removed by using dental laser with materials suitable for the structure of the milk tooth. And the milk tooth is filled with canal filling materials. Checks should be made at regular intervals.
Treatment with Laser
For a healthy development, if decay is detected in deciduous teeth, it is mandatory to be treated with filling. Recently developed comfortable treatment methods do not allow “fear” to occur in patients.
Is there a painless method other than general anesthesia for dental treatment of young children or children with fear of dentists? The answer to this question is the use of dental laser.
Hard tissue laser (Er:YAG) devices, Erbium lasers vaporize the tissues rapidly with a mechanism called “cold ablation” in enamel and dentin and selectively destroy the carious areas. In the meantime, since the vaporisation takes place very rapidly in a time interval of a split second, there is no time for pain sensation to occur.
It eliminates the need to “get a needle”, which is one of the biggest fears of children when going to the dentist. Therefore, when laser is used to clean the decays in deciduous teeth, cleaning can be performed quickly in a short period of time without the need for anesthesia with a silent and vibration-free operation, which makes it a suitable treatment option for children.
Emergency Intervention and Trauma
One of the most distressing situations for children and their families is the fracture, displacement or complete dislocation of the child’s tooth due to dental trauma. In dental trauma, regardless of the shape and size of the trauma, a dentist, if possible a pediatric dentist, should be consulted as soon as possible.
Generally, parents may not care much if there is no serious bleeding after a fall or injury, but it should not be forgotten that post-traumatic tooth loss is most common in teeth that are intervened late.
Especially in dental traumas resulting in tooth dislocation and tooth fracture, the time between the moment of the incident and reaching the dentist and the way the broken tooth piece or tooth is brought plays a major role in the success of the treatment. In such a case, the family should try to remain as calm as possible and inform the dentist exactly when, how and where the accident occurred.
For problems encountered during pregnancy, support from an experienced physician should be sought, and if treatment is necessary, it should be preferred especially in the second period between 3-6 months.
It is possible to prevent oral and dental disorders that occur as a result of changes in the body during pregnancy with the correct communication and coordination of the patient and the physician before and during pregnancy.
The sudden increase in hormone levels during pregnancy increases the tendency to gingivitis. If the plaque accumulated on the teeth and gums cannot be adequately cleaned, gingivitis (swelling, bleeding, redness of the gums) and pregnancy tumors on the gums can easily develop.
Pregnant women with serious untreated gum disease before pregnancy are at risk of premature birth or having a low birth weight baby. Therefore, it is important to have a good oral hygiene routine and gum treatments before pregnancy.
Porcelain Laminate Treatment Process
Vomiting, which occurs especially in the early stages of pregnancy, can create an acidic environment in the mouth and cause abrasion, sensitivity and caries in the teeth.
Especially, brushing the teeth immediately after vomiting may increase the abrasions on the tooth surface. For this reason, the mouth should be rinsed with plenty of water after vomiting and teeth should be brushed after half an hour.
It should not be forgotten that living with infected teeth and the stress caused by advanced pain can often pose more risk to the baby than the risk of treatment.
How should we eat for dental health?
Foods that are considered harmful for dental health are sugary and acidic foods and substances that stick to the teeth and cannot be easily cleaned. It is not necessary to cut them completely, but to consume them in a certain order to prevent tooth decay.
Recommended diet for dental health;
Sugary, sticky or acidic foods should be consumed in three main meals.
Between meals, foods such as apples and carrots that will clean hard teeth and massage the gums should be eaten.
If it is not possible to brush the teeth after eating sugary, sticky food, the mouth should be rinsed with water or drink a glass of water.
Again, a piece of cheese to be thrown into the mouth after eating sugary food is extremely important in terms of eliminating the caries preventive effect of sugar.
preventive applications in infants and children
The aim of the preventive dentistry applications that the dentist will apply to the child at an early age is to strengthen the teeth against caries by strengthening the tooth structure and filling the gaps where bacteria can accumulate. With the application of fissure sealant (dental vaccine), the recesses in the tooth structure where food residues and bacteria can accumulate are filled. Thus, areas favorable to decay that cannot be cleaned by brushing are eliminated. Fluoride application strengthens the mineral structure of the tooth enamel, protects the tooth enamel against acids and prevents caries formation. Caries in the initial stage can be stopped with fluorine application.
