Paediatric Dentistry
At Dixit Dental Care, We focus on preventive care to help each child grow with a healthy smile that will last a lifetime. Children start developing their baby teeth during the first six months of their lives. By the time they are 6 years old, they start losing their teeth and these get replaced by a secondary set of teeth. Unless there’s proper dental care, children might get affected by oral decay and disease which can cause a lifetime of problems. For instance, early childhood dental caries is one of the most problematic infectious diseases affecting children today. It is far more common than asthma and hay fever.
Pediatric dentistry is a specialized field of dentistry that specifically caters to children with special dental needs and the ones who need careful medical supervision. Pediatric dentists are specifically trained in this discipline. They are also trained in orthodontic teeth-straightening methods.
Preparing for the Visit
It’s very important to properly plan your child’s first dental visit. You must ensure that the visit is enjoyable and positive for your child. This is of utmost importance since this will influence his or her future dental visits. The first visit to a dentist will usually involve a thorough discussion about methods that can be used to take care of your child’s mouth including the use of fluoride. The dentist will also discuss problematic bad habits such as sucking fingers or biting nails. He or she will examine your child’s gums to identify existing problems. He or she will also prepare a schedule for the child’s future dental visits.
Dental Care for Kids
- The cleaning and disinfection of the tooth can save it from completely decaying, however, it does not regain the strength necessary for it to function efficiently over a longer period of time, let alone permanently.
- Use Fluoride-based toothpaste since they remineralize teeth damaged by toxic bacterial acids.
- It’s important to take your child to a dentist regularly. This routine check-up can identify any potential problems and prevent future dental costs.
- Please guide your child through the right brushing technique since they might not be able to reach the back of their teeth on their own.
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Comprehensive Examinations
You need to ensure that your child undergoes regular comprehensive dental examinations. This involves a thorough assessment of teeth and gums. The dentist then uses the findings from this examination to form a complete diagnosis and treatment plan for the patient. You have to maintain a proper schedule for dental checkups for your child at regular intervals.
Preventative services
Preventative dental services focus on creating good dental health habits so that your child does not have to undergo dental treatment in the future. This includes the use of fluoride toothpaste and pit and fissure sealants, on ideal nutritional habits, teaching proper brushing and flossing techniques to the child and guidance regarding erupting teeth.
Tooth Fillings
The traditional and the conservative way of treating a dental cavity in your child’s teeth is simply monitoring and keeping a check on the number of cavities. White fillings can be used to fix smaller cavities and especially those in the grooves of the teeth. Silver crowns or caps can be used in case of bigger cavities where a baby tooth root canal is required. White crowns are esthetic options which can be used when a child only needs a few crowns and can withstand a longer treatment.
Restorative procedures
Restorative procedures should ideally be the last resort when it comes to treating caries in children. Unfortunately, in most cases, it becomes the first step. Today’s pediatric dentists believe that caries can be managed through managing biofilm and demineralization. They believe that a combination of minimal restoration and traditional operative dentistry should be used for children.
Pulpectomy
Pulpectomy is performed on milk teeth when there is decay which goes unattended and ends up in infection of pulp or the nerve of tooth. The procedure involves removal of the infected pulp, the area inside is disinfected and then filled with an inert material. Since the roots of the teeth should be resorbed, the procedure uses a material that can be absorbed to fill the canal space. The milk teeth have an important role to play beyond waiting for the permanent teeth to erupt. They help your child to eat, speak and prepare space for the permanent teeth.
Tooth Decay & Infection
Root Canal Treatment
Stainless Steel Crowns
Stainless Steel Crowns, or SSC, is an extremely durable preformed metal crown that is primarily used in pediatric dentistry to restore severely decayed primary teeth- usually following a pulpectomy. The metal also protects the remainder of the at-risk tooth surfaces, and the treatment is well-known for its durability and longevity. Stainless Steel Crowns are preferred over other variants chiefly due to its cost-effectiveness. They may also be used on permanent molars, but may cause mild irritation to the gums and tooth-supporting structures in adults. Also, due to the prominent silver appearance, SSC is usually not favoured for the front teeth.
Zirconia Crowns
Zirconia Crowns are a relatively new innovation that brings together the natural look of porcelain and the durability of metals. They have become quite popular due to the numerous advantages over older variations – whether it is its extreme durability and matching the colour of your teeth exactly, or the fact that it can be “milled” at the dentist’s office itself, so you can have your treatment done in a single appointment. They can be layered with porcelain to make it even more aesthetically pleasing. These crowns are also biocompatible and will not react adversely when implanted in the human body.
Surgical procedures
Although many children are treated by the process of conditioning and modelling, Pediatric dentistry is also referred to as sleep dentistry since most of the patients are treated under sedation or under general anaesthesia during the process. This ensures that a child does not face any pain during the given procedure. This also allows the dentist to completely restore teeth without having to worry about injuring a child who might be uncooperative or simply restless in a chair.
Emergency Care
If your child is going through a dental emergency, it is imperative that you opt for treatment as soon as possible. Postponing this can cause further complications and lead to elaborate treatment. If you see that your child is suffering from tremendous oral pain or a dental emergency of some kind like a fall injuring tooth, gums and most instances lips, please don’t hesitate to opt for an emergency dental service immediately.
Interceptive Orthodontics
Interceptive orthodontics is basically handling teeth eruption and malocclusion or abnormal biting in children before they can create further problems. This is achieved by using fixed or removable appliances for the teeth. Space maintainers are used if the child loses teeth because of trauma, decays or congenital reasons.
Habit breaking appliances
In ideal situations, you should be encouraging your toddler to stop sucking on their thumbs or fingers or tongue thrusting. But in case you have a really stubborn child who continues the habit, it’s important to use a habit-breaking appliance. These appliances are not painful but they cause enough discomfort to make sure that the child stops the habit.
Space Maintainers
Primary teeth play a huge role in preparing the space for proper alignment of permanent teeth. When primary teeth have to be removed because of various reasons such as abscess, dentists recommend space maintainers, that hold the space together and keep a proper future slot ready for permanent teeth.The following are some of the commonly used space maintainers.
- Band and space loop maintainer: Your child’s primary teeth can prematurely fall out causing space and alignment problems. A band and loop maintainer simply reserves space in your child’s mouth until permanent teeth come in. A permanent tooth coming up when there’s no space is available in the mouth can cause severe dental problems.
- Distal Shoe Space Maintainer: A Distal shoe space Maintainer is used in children to stop first molars from moving mesially with the premature loss of second primary molars. The distal maintainer is extended inside the tissue against the first permanent molar. This is also known as a distal shoe and is used in the case second molars are lost before the eruption of the first molars.
SPECIAL CASE:
A baby patient of 9 days old reported to our practice with the chief complaint of difficulty in feeding secondary to tooth present at birth which is called Natal teeth which is a rare phenomenon. Dr Santosh Dixit performed a procedure to remove teeth under pediatric consent.
Happy Baby…Happy feeding