Mon, Dec 09 2024
Reading time: 6 mins
Taking your child to the dentist for the first time? It’s okay to feel anxious. This is a crucial step for you and your child’s journey of oral hygiene. It is always better to have an idea of what to expect during children’s dental cleaning.
This will help you find the best dental care for your child, and also enable you to tackle your child’s anxiety in the first dental visit. Take a look at this blog to find out the right dentist for your child and also learn tips on their stress management.
Before scheduling an appointment of dental cleaning for your child, you must look into some essential aspects like:
When it comes to the first professional dental cleaning for your child, preparing them is essential. This requires informing them about different steps involved in dental cleaning. Following is a guide on children’s dental cleaning, highlighting every step:
For dental cleaning, the dentist may first scan your teeth with the help of X-rays. The X-ray images help detect several dental issues which the dentist cannot find with the naked eye. For example, digital X-rays help reveal tooth movements, decays or even bone loss.
Professional examination of your child’s mouth and teeth is a crucial part of children’s dentistry. The dentist must carefully check the gums, teeth and the entire mouth for any signs of decays or developing oral disease.
The paediatric dentist might also enquire if your kid has been experiencing any kind of tooth sensitivity in the recent few days. You should also inform the practitioner about any other concerns or dark spots occurring on your child’s teeth.
Next starts the actual process of dental cleaning. Here the dentist removes any kind of tartar or plaque build-up on your teeth. Professional paediatric dentists in UK use a handheld tool called scaler for this purpose.
This tool and a mirror are used together to remove your deposits of plaque and tartar. In case of large deposits of tartar, the dentist might use an ultrasonic scaler to remove them with the action of vibration and water.
Next, your child can get smooth and shiny teeth by polishing. For this purpose, the dentist utilises a high powered toothbrush and gritty toothpaste to clean their teeth. While this polish removes stains from your teeth, it also prevents plaque from rebuilding in between cleanings.
Flossing includes the dental practitioner cleaning in between your child’s teeth with dental floss. This process is highly effective in cleaning even the most troublesome and difficult-to-reach spots in your mouth. Any spots or leftover plaque during polishing can be easily removed with professional flossing.
The function of fluoride is to make your child’s enamel strong and also protect them against decay. For this, the practitioner may fill a tray with foam or fluoride gel and then ask your kid to bite it down for up to 1 minute. After this process, the dentist will completely rinse your child’s mouth.
Fluoride can also be applied on your teeth with the help of a brush. In this case, the dentist paints fluoride in the form of a varnish on your teeth. The fluoride gets hardened on contact with your teeth, and there are no risks of your child swallowing it.
New parenthood might put you in a situation where you could be confused about when is the right time to get a dental cleaning for your child. Once you observe a tooth coming out in your child’s mouth, take him/her to the dentist immediately; no matter how many teeth have appeared.
The earlier you will take your child to the dentist, the better it will be for his/her oral health in the future. This is because routine dental visits allow the dentist to detect tooth decays or other dental deformities at an early stage; thereby resisting their chances of getting worse. In fact, routine trips to the dentist also educate you on proper dental care of your child.
It is quite likely that your child will get nervous and anxious before visiting the paediatric dentist for the first time. It is your duty as a parent to empower your child and make him/her feel confident during a dental visit. Here are some tips you can follow to calm down your child and prepare him/her for the dental visit:
For good oral hygiene for your child, you can follow the instructions below:
Here are some things to avoid for protecting the oral health of your child:
You can easily prepare your child for undergoing professional dental cleaning with the tips discussed above. If you are looking for children’s dental cleaning, contact MD.co.uk today to get the best dental services for your child.