The best kids dentist will tell you that we face a number of challenges when dealing with children’s teeth. The age of the child, the uniqueness of dealing with a growing jaw, and the importance of being gentle all pose their own challenges. However, as the best kid’s dentist, we will tell you that the single largest challenge that we face is misunderstandings about the importance of children’s oral health. Parents, as a group, tend to be extremely diligent when it comes to the health of their children. They will take them in regularly for examinations, shots, and routine well visits with the pediatrician but often forget that the children’s teeth also need to be taken care of by the best kid’s dentist. Recently, a study was conducted to understand these facts and the results were quite shocking. In a group of children, under or at the age of one, it was found that 89% of them had visited the pediatrician for at least one well visit in their lifetime. In this exact same group, oral health was severely neglected; only 1.5% of the parents had taken their children into their kid’s dentist. This has led to an influx of cases of pediatric dental disease, also known as childhood tooth decay. We have found, consistent with national numbers, that in children between the ages of twelve and fifteen, there is a 50% prevalence of decay; half the children in this group have pediatric dental disease. Even in children far younger, between the ages of two and five, there was a 25% occurrence. With care and early childhood dental visits, we can entirely prevent this.
As the best kids dentists, we much prefer to give your child a holistic form of preventative care. This involves bi-annual visits where we can catch problems before they begin, and your child can learn great oral health behaviors. In addition to being more comfortable for your child, this preventative schedule can also be less expensive for you. Numerous studies have shown that for every one dollar a parent spends on preventative medicine, they can save up to $50 in emergency dental care later on. This combined with the discomfort of emergency procedures is a good reason bring your child in twice a year for regularly scheduled maintenance and cleaning. In addition to the benefit of cost and comfort, there is additional saved time. In the United States, children lose an average of 2.26 million school days per year because they are at the dentist office in an emergency or restorative situation. As the best kid’s dentist, we want to help your children live comfortably and in good health, preventing situations like these from happening.
One of the things that we will do with your child is to discuss the importance of oral health and a healthy diet. When children learn to eat good food from a young age, they can develop lifelong habits that are highly beneficial. We can inform them of what a mouth healthy diet looks like so that they can make positive choices that include eating dairy, lean protein, and green leafy vegetables. Following our suggestions will help your child to have healthy and strong teeth. We are also the best kids dentist for answering questions so feel free to bring a list of anything else you want to know.