Steps to Prevent Dental Injuries

Many children tend to be injury-prone, and that certainly holds true when it comes to their dental health, too.

Common problems addressed in pediatric dentistry include injuries due to trauma such as falls, which can knock a tooth loose or cause a broken facial bone.

An increasing number of children also participate in contact sports, which increases their risk of dental injuries, as well.

Parents and their children can take precautions against dental injuries. In fact, you can consult with a children’s emergency dentist to develop a to-do list for dental injury prevention. Some of these steps are quite simple.

Although your child may resist, picking up toys is a great preventive measure against facial trauma. Anything that can reduce the risk of falls, will also reduce the risk of tooth loss or a broken jaw bone that can result from a fall.

Wearing a mouthguard can reduce the likelihood of dental damage from a sports injury. A quality mouthguard will limit the forces that are transferred to the teeth and facial bones, and a custom-designed device is quite comfortable and will not interfere with your child’s athletic performance.

In addition to knowing what steps to take to reduce your child’s chances of a dental injury, it’s important to have the phone number for a good children’s emergency dentist handy anyway just in case a tooth should be knocked loose. Many pediatric dental practices even have dentists who are on call on weekends and evenings to address critical injuries that arise outside of business hours.

Before you get to the dentist to have your child assessed, you can do some triage at home in case of a dislodged tooth. If it’s a primary tooth, there’s no need to attempt to re-insert it, although you still want to get an evaluation by a pediatric dentist to determine if a prematurely lost baby tooth has the potential to cause any other problems down the line.

For a permanent tooth, you can try to gently insert it back into its position. If that doesn’t work, store it in a cup of milk and get to the dentist as soon as possible.

Talk to our dentist about steps that you can take to prevent dental injuries and know how to react when an emergency does occur. Ultimately, this knowledge can help to protect your child’s oral health.

Call 817-569-6633 to schedule an appointment today.