By teaching your children the importance of oral hygiene, they can begin to enjoy a healthy smile that lasts a lifetime. While brushing and flossing each day is critical to maintaining the strength of their teeth, it is still capable for children to experience cavities. By taking your son or daughter to semiannual checkups, you provide an opportunity to protect them against decay and detect it early when it does occur. This can minimize the work needed to remove a cavity and provide the strength of a dental filling. Protecting a baby’s tooth until it is time to fall out naturally is vital to ensuring your child’s bite stays in alignment and their jaw grows into its proper shape.

At your Shirley, NY, pediatric dentist and orthodontist, we are pleased to serve every member of your family. This includes paying special attention to your little ones as they begin their smile care journeys! While we love to see the results of their daily hygiene routine, we understand the difficulty they can have in fully reaching their back molars. This is why we perform regular examinations to catch decay and help prevent it from spreading or damaging their smiles worse.

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Just like you do, your little one needs to see the dentist from time to time for a routine pediatric cleaning and examination in the office. For most children, these visits need to happen every six months at the very latest, and some smiles need an accelerated schedule due to certain genetic factors. Talk to your pediatric oral health provider about the specific dental needs of your child, and then stick to that schedule!

While we understand the struggles of time management as a parent, our dental office in Shirley, NY also knows how beneficial pediatric oral health maintenance can be for their young smiles. At this age, their mouths are developing rapidly, so be sure that you stay close to your dentist so that they can grow up with a happy and healthy smile. Help your child to learn positive oral health maintenance techniques such as brushing and flossing with routine preventive care from a professional. Their cleanings and examinations also help them to know the importance of prevention, so talk with our team and schedule their next appointment for a dental checkup! (more…)

The goal of children’s dentistry is to help your son or daughter develop a healthy smile as they grow into adolescence. By teaching them the skills to take care of their smile at home, we hope to prevent decay from damaging their teeth. But even with the best intentions, your child can develop a cavity from time to time. When decay grows too large to repair with a simple filling, we could place a dental crown to cap the tooth and restore its bite.  By resealing their injury, we prevent infection from taking hold and help your little one maintain their alignment.

At your Shirley, NY pediatric dentist and orthodontist, we love putting smiles on little faces. When you bring your child to receive a more involved procedure like capping their tooth, we take special care to ensure their comfort and help them feel secure. By returning their bite, we can maintain the proper growth of their jaw and position of all teeth until it is time for the baby tooth to naturally fall out.

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Regular dental checkups are vital to ensuring the health of your child’s smile. Not only do we clean their teeth at each visit, but a six-month checkup allows us to inspect your child’s teeth for the signs of decay or gum disease. If we detect a cavity, we will suggest removing the decaying material and placing a cavity to restore the outer seal of their tooth. This helps stop the spread of decay to neighboring teeth and aids in proper jaw growth by maintaining the alignment of their bite.

At your Shirley, NY, pediatric dentist and orthodontist, we look forward to serving your family as your child grows into adolesence. Receiving checkups allows us to create a dental record that indicates when flaws appear. Because children are still learning to fully brush and floss each day, tooth decay can take hold of their baby teeth from time to time. We encourage placing a restoration to help them enjoy a healthy smile.

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When your child wakes up with a toothache that will not go away on its own, we can provide timely relief. This symptom can indicate a bacterial infection that must be removed to prevent it from traveling to other parts of the body. At this stage of life, it may be possible to perform an alternative to root canal therapy called a pulpotomy. This procedure can leave their tooth’s roots in place while removing bacterial deposits and cleaning out decayed material.

At your Shirley, NY pediatric dentist and orthodontist, we provide emergency dental care for little patients that experience an injury. This includes sudden toothaches that take permanent hold of their little mouths. By removing their tooth’s infection, we can stop the painful condition that they cannot and should not ignore. Because children’s jaws are still developing, this procedure leaves their tooth intact to preserve their bite and support their oral health. Taking the time to learn about our services can help you make the right decision when it comes to preserving your child’s smile!

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In last week’s blog, we discussed protecting your child’s molars from decay with dental sealants. In addition to this physical barrier, we also provide a chemical treatment to strengthen your child’s enamel as they learn to fully clean their little smiles. By applying a fluoride treatment, we can help the surface of their teeth remineralize to fight acidification from plaque and tartar.

At your Shirley, NY pediatric dentist and orthodontist, we take a preventive approach when it comes to protecting your child’s teeth. These additional protective services safeguard their smiles as they learn healthy oral hygiene habits. When children are little, they may lack the dexterity to clean the entire surface of every tooth. This is why treatment with fluoride and dental sealants can go a long way in maintaining healthy grins as they grow into adolescence.

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When your child is still learning to clean their entire smile, they can have a hard time reaching back their molars when brushing and flossing. This can make them more likely to receive cavities there than on their front teeth they can more easily reach. To offer additional protection until they develop the dexterity to fully brush their back teeth, we can place a set of dental sealants. Sealants create a physical barrier to prevent debris and bacteria from sticking to their little teeth and eroding the enamel beneath.

At your Shirley, NY orthodontist and pediatric dentist, we look forward to helping protect your little one’s smile as they grow into adolescence. This can require a little added help to prevent cavities until they can fully clean their smile in between routine checkups. Because cavities can harm the alignment of their bite, we stress maintaining healthy baby teeth until they are naturally ready to fall out.

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