Setting Standards – Dental Care for Children

Dental care is extremely important for children. Not pushing oral hygiene at an early age is going to lead to a range of problems in the future. You will always find that those children that had good oral hygiene from an early age will not have problems with their teeth and gums later on in life. As a new parent, you might feel fairly helpless, but there are actually a lot of things that you can be doing to help set standards for your children.

Prevention is Better than the Cure

Prevention is always better than the cure. You need to ensure that your children are doing everything in their power to maintain a great level of oral hygiene. This includes:

• Brushing their teeth at least twice per day
• Getting their teeth professionally cleaned at least twice per year
• Flossing daily to remove excess plaque
• Brushing their tongue regularly
• Brushing their gums softly on a daily basis

The list above represents the easiest part of oral hygiene. This can all easily be done on a daily basis from the comfort of your own home, except for the two trips to the dentist for professional cleans.

Alongside the procedures mentioned above, indulging in certain foods and drinks is also known to be extremely helpful when it comes to protecting oral hygiene. Here are some of the items they should be eating and drinking and why:

·        Chewing gum helps to produce saliva which cleans the teeth

·        Green tea is made up of compounds, including antioxidants which play a role in reducing the amount of plaque build up on the teeth

·        Fruit containing Vitamin C will help to increase the strength of the gums

·        Water contains nothing harmful, yet it hydrates the gums and washes harmful particles off the teeth

·        Vegetables including carrots and broccoli help to produce tooth enamel

Harmful Foods in Small Doses

One of the main reasons an individual may find their oral hygiene declining quicker than another is down to the volume of harmful food and drink that they consume. As a parent, you need to ensure that the levels are harmful foods and drinks are kept to extremely small doses. This won’t just help with oral hygiene for your children now, but it will help to set a standard in the future, where your children don’t indulge for the sake of it. Here are some things worth thinking about:

• Excess sugars, such as fizzy drinks and chocolate can quickly damage the teeth
• Crisps contain starch which can quickly turn into sugars thanks to saliva
• Remember that fruit juices also contain excess amounts of sugars and even have acidic properties

Professional Maintenance

Setting an example to your children is incredibly important. After around the 6 month mark, children will see their first teeth start to appear. As soon as they start to appear, you should be taking them regularly to your local dentist. Most high quality dentists will suggest that visiting at least twice each year is going to be ideal. This can be tied in with the professional clean mentioned above.

Remember that dentists, like all other human beings, do make mistakes. It is always worth having a company specialising with dental negligence claims on hand to help, just in case. They will be able to help solve any disputes that occur.