We love to see children in our practice! It is unrealistic to say that we can see all children that come through our doors, but we are able to treat about 90-95% of them. We are always willing to “give it a try” before a referral to a pediatric dentist.
Seeing children at the dental office often involves a lot of education. When communicating with kids, we use the tell-show-do method. Treatments are explained in a simple manner and we show them the things that we are about to do. This demystifies the procedure and helps put the child at ease. We also use a lot of positive reinforcement. Early appointments are about education, oral hygiene instruction, checking for cavities, and cleaning and polishing their teeth. As your child grows, we monitor the development of their teeth and jaw bones for orthodontic problems and make referrals to an orthodontist for braces if appropriate.

What if your child needs to have a cavity fixed? For primary (baby) teeth, we can often fix these cavities using nitrous oxide (laughing gas) only and no “shots.” That way we can avoid one of children’s biggest fears about going to the dentist. The material that we generally use for fixing cavities is a tooth-colored filling called a resin-modified glass ionomer (RMGI). It is a modern filling material that is tooth colored but also is able to absorb fluoride from the toothpaste the child uses and actively resist future decay in that area of the tooth. It is a great filling material for baby teeth.