Dental care tips for your kids during this summer

TechnoparkToday.com: The summer holidays are around the corner and all kids are all set to freak it out. But protecting your teeth holds a not so small place , especially when engaging yourselves in outdoor games and other sports activities. This applies especially to young children in the age group of 6 to 12 years whose permanent front teeth are still in the process of formation.

The upper front teeth are the most susceptible to injuries following road traffic accidents and other traumatic episodes both indoors and also out in the playgrounds. Apart from the toddlers, the school age group children are the ones who are easily prone to such accidents especially the sports injuries. The newly erupted young permanent teeth have incompletely formed roots. The jaw bones are also immature and in a pliable form in children. This makes the front teeth to get easily displaced from their sockets after trauma and this is not an easy situation to handle with. Here are some tips to take care of a tooth that has come out of its socket following trauma

Make sure that it is a permanent tooth because milk teeth are usually not placed back.
Try to place the tooth back in to its socket and make the child keep it in position by biting on a piece of gauze or a clean handkerchief and rush to your nearest pediatric dentist
If unable to replace, don’t panic. Never try to clean or scrub the tooth even if contaminated with dust or dirt. Immediately transfer the tooth into a liquid medium. The best carrier medium easily available would be chilled and skimmed milk ( the Milma milk available in yellow packets which contain the least amount of fat). But the best medium available commercially is HBSS (Hans Balanced Salt Solution). It is advisable to stock this in schools and indoor and outdoor stadiums which is available as “Save-a-tooth” kit with all the necessary things to handle the tooth before reaching the concerned clinician

Once you take the child and the tooth to the dentist, he or she will try to replant the tooth in its socket and the teeth so replanted will remain in its place at least for a couple of years more until the jaw growth is complete and other options of prosthetic rehabilitation can be easily done. But the longevity depends greatly on many factors out of which one important thing is the total time the tooth is out of its socket. So try to reach the pediatric dentist as early as possible and within minutes would not be really an exaggeration as every minute counts in case of a tooth out of its socket Make sure that the tooth is not left to dry and if even milk is not readily available keep the tooth in plain tap water.

But “an ounce of prevention is always better than pounds of cure.” Custom made mouth guards are easily fabricated in dental labs and would be advisable to wear them as per your dentist’s advice if engaging in contact sports.So kids… have a happy and safe vacation…. Enjoy your childhood to its fullest !!

Author Info:-  This article is exclusively written by Dr.Reshmi  J MDS, Pediartric Dentist, Bluesprings Dental Clinic, Pongumood, Trivandrum – to educate the readers of TechnoparkToday.com. You can reach Dr.Reshmi for any of your dental related queries & questions. Reach the author- Ph :9497878762. 0471 6453131 | visit http://bluespringsdental.com