Three Ways Regular Dental Cleanings Can Protect Your Child's Future
When you're raising a child, dental cleanings are just part of what they need in order to ensure that they're healthy and safe. It may seem like putting off a dental cleaning for a while isn't a big deal, but it increases your child's risk of developing cavities, gum disease, or worse. The good news is, that by bringing your child in for regular dental cleanings, you can help to ensure that their future is a bright one. Here's how.
Looking Their Best
Dental decay and tooth loss can happen at any age, but it's terrible to have it happen as a child. Depending on your personal finances and insurance situation, having a tooth filled or a root canal performed may mean needing to go with a metal filling or crown to protect the tooth. While these are perfectly effective, they can make a person feel self-conscious about their appearance. Tooth loss can also have the same impact, should your child go so long without a cleaning that the decay becomes severe enough that an extraction is necessary.
Unfortunately, studies have shown that people really do judge each other on first impressions and appearances. Helping your child to keep their teeth healthy through their childhood will ensure that they enter adulthood with the best possible oral health and no unsightly defects in their smile that could potentially hurt their chances at getting a job or even a date.
Brain
This is important for everyone, but there's no better time to start than now. There may be a link between the health of one's teeth and gums and the health of the brain. In particular, it seems as though there's some kind of link between the chronic inflammation of gum disease and decaying teeth that can increase the risk of developing dementia later in life. While this is something that typically doesn't arise until old age, ensuring that your child has gums and teeth that are as healthy as possible now will help to protect them.
Pain and Fear
Finally, dental cleanings are typically painless and don't take long. However, the same can't be said for every dental procedure. Some things, like extractions and root canals, can potentially be scary and take a while to fully recover from as a kid. This can end up making your child afraid of going to the dentist in the future as an adult. Building a good routine with them going and getting dental cleaning on a regular basis will help to prevent them from having dental problems in the first place, and will help to reinforce the habit for when they become an adult, continuing to protect them from the prior two issues, as well.
Contact your dentist for more information about children's dental cleaning.