Pediatric Dentistry
Baby’s 1st Visit, Fenectomies, & Orthodontics
Services
Pediatric Dentistry
Good oral care begins with education. Our team takes the time to ensure you and your child leave our office feeling equipped with the knowledge and tools to make the right oral health decisions at home. Good oral care often equals good overall health and our mission is to ensure we give your child a healthy start.
Baby’s First Dental Visit
One of the most common questions we get asked is, when should I bring my child in for their first dental visit? We suggest following the recommendation of the Canadian Dental Association. They recommend infants to see a dentist within 6 months of their first tooth erupting or by one year of age. Remember, prevention is key! The goal is to have your child visit the dentist before there is a problem with their teeth or their orofacial development. It’s important to consider that by age 4, about 75% of facial growth is complete, therefore early intervention with poor development is crucial. In most cases, a 6-month interval is ideal for your dentist to catch minor preventable problems. This becomes especially important for a growing child that undergoes a lot of changes in a short period.
During your baby’s first visit, we will give you information on:
- Promoting optimal face and jaw development
- Importance of nasal breathing
- Risks of baby-bottle tooth decay
- Preventing baby-bottle tooth decay
- Maintaining teeth and gums maintenance
- Infant feeding practices
- Teething and what to expect
- Pacifier habits
- Finger-sucking habits
Early Interceptive Orthodontics
Your child’s development
Did you know we can correct your child’s crowding/crooked teeth before the age of 11? District Dental can consult with you to develop a plan. Your child’s development is dynamic and affected by various forces throughout life. We keep this in mind when approaching your child’s needs.
Why does my child have crowding/crooked teeth?
The answer is simple. Your child’s jaws are too small. However, there are many reasons for this. We often contribute small jaws to heredity. Though not wrong, it prevents us from considering other reasons your child’s jaw is small. Some of these reasons are controllable and give us the ability to guide the growth of your child to accommodate all of their teeth and their tongue in a well-aligned and balanced manner.
Treatments:
- Myobrace: a no-braces orthodontic approach to help straighten the teeth and develop the jaws.
- Jaw expansion/development appliances
- Planas direct tracks: composite tooth buildups to guide teeth into alignment.
- Myofunctional therapy: the neuromuscular re-education or re-patterning of the oral and facial muscles. Therapy includes facial + tongue exercises and behavior modification techniques to promote proper tongue position, improved breathing, chewing, and swallowing.
Does my baby need a frenectomy?
Prolonged feedings
Poor breast drainage
Flattened nipples after breastfeeding
Baby has lip blisters
Poor weight gain in baby
Popping on and off the breast
Lip and Tongue Ties Releases
A Frenum is a muscular attachment found under your upper and lower lip, and underneath your tongue. The function of a frenum is to provide stability for your lips and tongue.
A frenum that is too short restricts movement of your tongue and/or lips. As your child grows, a short frenum affects jaw development and can cause crooked teeth. Also, lips and tongue that don’t function well can affect your child’s ability to breathe, chew, swallow and speak.
Sleep Disordered Breathing
Most of us have heard of adult sleep apnea. However, few of us have heard of Pediatric Sleep Disordered Breathing (Sleep Apnea). We estimate that 1 to 4% of children suffer from sleep apnea and is most common in children aged 2 to 8.
Sleep Apnea can have a negative effect on your child’s overall health and development. If left untreated, a child with sleep apnea can experience lifelong pain, poor development, depression and health issues such as heart conditions and high blood pressure.
Nighttime symptoms of pediatric sleep apnea:
- Frequent loud snoring
- Pauses in breathing, gasping and snorting
- Restlessness and constant movement
- Abnormal posture during sleep with their head in unnatural positions
- Heavy sweating from labored breathing
Symptoms of pediatric sleep apnea:
- Failure to thrive
- Headaches, especially in the mornings
- Difficulty waking up
- Mouth breathing
- Nasal voice
- Irritability and aggressive behavior
- Fatigue
- Hyperactivity
- Bed wetting
- Depression
- Poor behavior/Poor performance in school
- Poor health
- Social isolation
