1st Year, 1st Tooth
“When should I take my child to see the dentist?” is a question I am asked multiple
times a day in my clinical practice. Taking your child to a dentist early is always a great
idea and it has nearly nothing to do with making the dentist more money! Sure, they
are reimbursed for their services. However, the return in invaluable.They should be very knowledgable and assist you with key information and demonstration of how you can help preserve and achieve baseline dental care from the beginning of your child’s oral health.
Baseline
If we can begin at baseline, vs digging ourselves and our child out of a hole, it presents many advantages for oral health. Some of those advantages are as follows:
– Familiarize our children with the dental environment (decreases that dentist anxiety that we all know too well!)
– Acceptance and acclimation to staff
– Prevention (OHI, diagnose, tx plan, fluioride… learn more about these here)
– Establish records
– Family dentist established
Find out more about these bullet points by exploring of our blogs here!
What is the value?Returning to the value of bringing your children in @ 1 st year/1 st tooth, is that they are often acclimated to the dentist from the beginning. This means they are often not as afraid. Another benefit is that we can mitigate or entirely avoid the cause of early dental cavities (caries). The result is possibly catching the early onset of preventable treatment. Another huge advantage is that the colonization of bacteria is combatted, preparing the our children for a lifetime of minimizing the need for dental visits!
