Give Your Child the Additional Protection They Need against Cavities with Dental Sealants
Children need protective barriers on their teeth against tooth decay and cavities. Your child’s pediatric dentist recommends using fluoride toothpaste from age three and receiving fluoride varnish treatments from age six to strengthen their enamel. While fluoride toothpaste and varnish strengthen enamel to prevent children from developing sensitive teeth and prevent tooth decay from penetrating the enamel, children need an additional protective barrier on their molars when they start producing them from age seven.
Molars have deep pits and fissures where food and bacteria remain trapped. Bacteria frequently attack molars to develop cavities causing permanent damage to the tooth. When left untreated, cavities expand, begin hurting and get infected. The grooves of the back teeth are the places favored by bacteria to create holes. It is why you must ensure your child has the extra protection they need by taking them to the best pediatric dentist Phoenix for an application of dental sealants.
Want to Know More about Dental Sealants?
Dental sealants are thin coatings when painted on the chewing surfaces of the molars that help prevent cavities for many years. The sealants efficiently protect the chewing surfaces from cavities with a protective coating blocking out bacteria in food from trapping in the grooves.
An application of sealants on the child’s teeth offers 80 percent protection against cavities for two years, and the defense continues against 50 percent cavities for up to four years. The sealants remain on your child’s teeth for up to nine years but need frequent monitoring during routine exams with their pediatric dentist.
Can You Request Your Child’s Pediatric Dentist for an Application of Dental Sealants?
Yes, cavities are a common chronic condition among children and teenagers. The holes in the child’s teeth cause them pain and infection besides eating, speaking, and attending school. Children may even need expensive dental treatments at high costs that you can ill afford. Thankfully dental sealants are highly effective but underutilized protective shield helpful for protecting children’s teeth against cavities.
Can Any Dentist Provide Dental Sealant Application?
Any dentist can provide dental sealant application to children so long as they are qualified to treat children calmly and gently. The dental sealant application procedure, although painless, is sensitive and requires your child to sit with their mouths open for a few minutes.
Children are usually uncooperative during any medical treatment, especially with dentists with whom they don’t know what to expect. Therefore the application is better received from the Phoenix, AZ, pediatric dentist, an experienced professional frequently providing many dental treatments for children in the area.
Applying dental sealants merely requires a few minutes, and your child is free to continue eating or drinking anything they want immediately after that. However, they must cooperate with the dentist during the application when their teeth are cleaned and dried with absorbent material before an etching solution is applied to them to allow the sealant to adhere to the tooth. The child’s teeth are cleaned again after using the etching solution and also left to dry. Finally, the pediatric dentist applies the dental sealant and dries it with a blue light. Your child can rise from the dentist’s chair soon after the blue light switches off.
Dental sealants help protect the child’s oral health by preventing cavities from developing on their molars. If your child needs orthodontics treatment soon after receiving the treatment, you can rest assured concerns about dental cavities on their molars will not haunt you. Dental treatments remain on your child’s teeth for up to nine years after placement. However, they tend to fall off and need monitoring during regular dental appointments. Children losing sealants also lose the protective barrier on their teeth and are prone to developing cavities. Replacing missing sealants is not challenging if you visit the child’s dentist frequently for dental exams.
Having dental sealants on your child’s teeth shouldn’t make you lax about supervising your child’s dental hygiene regimen. You must ensure your children brush and floss their teeth as recommended by the pediatric dentist. It would help if you also prevented frequent snacking of sugary and starchy foods by children and avoid giving them the freedom to enjoy carbonated beverages. An excellent oral hygiene regimen coupled with proper dietary habits helps prevent food particles and bacteria from accumulating on the child’s teeth. Taking your child for regular dental exams and cleanings further fortifies your child’s teeth, avoiding the development of cavities.