Coastal Pediatric Dentistry Blog

Teenagers are in a strange transition phase. While they still fit in the child age group in many ways, they crave responsibility and freedom. In the past, teens who needed orthodontic treatment had no other choice but to get metal braces, but these come with a long list of restrictions and rules as well as a more childish look. Instead, ClearCorrect involves clear plastic aligners to correct misalignment, offering several important freedoms for teens.

In some ways, such as survival, fear can be a valuable feeling. It’s what keeps most humans from attempting clearly dangerous actions that will lead to pain. However, sometimes a fearful perception keeps you from positive things as well. For instance, if your child needs pulp therapy, you may be afraid that treatment will cause more pain, but is that reality? Does pulp therapy hurt? What can your pediatric dentist do to reduce discomfort and anxiety?

In parenthood, there are countless times when you’ll second guess yourself or not know what to do. It’s not always crystal clear what the right choice is for your child’s safety and health. For instance, if your child tells you they have tooth sensitivity, you can debate whether this symptom requires an emergency dental visit.

Unlike pain, sensitivity doesn’t always mean something serious is wrong with your child’s mouth or that it is a dental emergency. Understanding the causes of sensitivity can help you know what to do if it becomes a problem for your child.

When your child arrives with a decayed or broken tooth, a pediatric dentist will likely examine it to determine if a dental filling or dental crown is the right option. In many cases, the tooth requires more stability, which means a custom restoration must be crafted and put into place. But how long do dental crowns last? Keep reading to find out.

If your child is like most kids, they often need to be reminded to keep eating and focus on their dinner. But when they complain of a toothache in one of their baby teeth, you wonder whether the dentist will put in a filling or just extract the tooth entirely.

Perhaps you think that fillings aren’t worthwhile in baby teeth, but it’s not true! Keep reading to learn why repairs to baby teeth are sometimes necessary.

When learning that your child needs a frenectomy to address their lip or tongue-tie, you are likely to have many questions, one of which is “How long will recovery take?” You must remember that each child is different, so providing a guaranteed length of time is impossible; however, when meeting with the pediatric dentist, you can expect to receive a general timeframe for how long your little one will need to recover swiftly and successfully. Keep reading to find out more.

Imagine: while at the park, you watch your child play happily. You take your eyes off them for one second and then hear a cry of pain. When you approach them, you see that they’ve chipped a tooth. Panic starts to kick in because you don’t know what to do!

If you know what you should do in advance, you can take care of your child and keep stress to a minimum in a dental emergency like chipping a tooth. Here are the steps you need to take in this type of scenario.

As your little one learns more and more about the world, books can be a great way to introduce different concepts and experiences before they try it for themselves. For instance, dental visits can be unnerving even for adults who know what to expect, so just imagine how your child might feel going through it for the first time! Although sedation dentistry is available, preparing your child with books may help as well.

Fortunately, there are tons of books out there that talk about the importance of dental health, the process of dental visits, and what dentists can be like. Keep reading to learn about just a portion of these books and how you can use them to help anxious kids feel better about going to the dentist and motivated to take care of their pearly whites.

One thing all parents have in common is that as soon as they have children, they start worrying about things they never would have given a second thought otherwise. A subject that consistently elicits a lot of debate online is fluoride. Should a very young child be exposed to fluoride? Will doing so affect their mental or physical health negatively? Do they need to drink fluoridated water and brush with fluoridated toothpaste? Find out the answers to these common questions and more in today’s blog.

Does your child have a lip or tongue-tie? If so, you may be worried that the struggle they experience with breastfeeding or taking a bottle will lead to more troublesome symptoms as they grow older, such as eating solid foods. A pediatric dentist explains what can happen if these tethered oral tissues are left untreated and what you can do to ensure your child receives the proper nutrition they need as they grow older.