It’s never too early to be concerned with your child’s oral health—and you can’t start teaching them how to take great care of their teeth and gums soon enough either! Our teeth serve us our whole lives, so educating your kids about good oral hygiene, and modeling it yourself, is paramount to their overall wellbeing.
One key treatment that offers many benefits to our pediatric patients is dental sealants. Prevention is so vital when it comes to children’s dental care, and sealants, when combined with excellent at-home care and regular checkups, ensure that your child has everything going for them to develop and maintain not just a dazzling smile, but a healthy one.
February is National Children’s Dental Health Month, and the caring Expressions in Dentistry team is invested in providing your child with the best dental care this month as well as all year round. We also aim to make our pediatric patients feel as comfortable as possible in our office, so they will make positive associations with dental visits!
Let us count the ways — five, to start!
But first, let’s get an exact idea of what dental sealants are. A thin, plastic, protective coating that your dentist “paints” onto the chewing surfaces of your child’s back teeth, the sealant helps even out the indentations and grooves of your child’s tooth enamel, which protects them from plaque accumulation that leads to decay.
Remember that even though sealants are an excellent protective weapon for your child’s teeth, this treatment in no way replaces brushing twice daily and flossing once a day. Sealants and daily care must be done in conjunction with each other. When they are, the results are amazing.
Here are a handful of sealant advantages:
We don’t just think dental sealant treatment reduces decay and cavities in kids; we know it does. Thanks to research by the American Association of Pediatric Dentistry, for example, we have learned that, “Sealant placement in children and adolescents has shown a reduction of cavities’ incidence [by] 86 percent after one year and 58 percent after four years. With appropriate follow-up care, the success rate of sealants may be 80-90 percent even after a decade.”
This is quite significant!
Since the dental sealant fills in grooves in the teeth, a more consistent, even tooth surface is created, which is easier to clean when your child brushes their teeth.
Applying sealants that can greatly protect your child from developing cavities is more cost-effective than having to pay for fillings and other expensive dental restorations.
Talk to us about the cost of dental sealants, and we can also help you figure out whether your child's dental insurance will cover treatment.
We just revealed that sealants are reasonably priced as compared to other treatments, and you get an even better value with sealants since they can last up to an impressive 10 years.
Getting sealant treatment won’t be a reason your child fears going to the dentist (and we do lots of things to ensure that won’t happen from the get-go), since the procedure is quick and painless.
After we dry your child’s teeth, we apply the dental sealant and use a light that helps the sealant to harden and set. Once your child leaves our office, they’re free to eat and drink, so there’s no disruption to your routines either.
We firmly believe that dental sealants are vital preventive treatments for kids, complementing their home care routine well and potentially saving your family trouble, time, and money.
Contact our office to learn more about how dental sealant treatment can boost your child’s dental health by calling our conveniently located East Bidwell Street office in Folsom, California, at 916-983-6767 or booking an appointment with us online.
