When it comes to hygiene practices, as a parent many times you may think about the necessity of dental care for your baby, as they do not even have teeth. The importance of oral health and hygiene is given priority when your child is at the age of adolescence, but when they are babies often this hygiene factor is ignored, you must start maintaining your baby teeth from early stages so that your child’s oral health can be better for the years to come. Building up a habit of gentle dental care in Scottsdale during infancy is going to help you set up the stage for a healthy smile of a lifetime. Read this article to learn why it is important to take care of your baby’s teeth and how it will benefit you.
Why Is It Important?
It is harder to take care of a baby’s teeth because many of them might not voluntarily allow you to do so, so we skip it or wonder if is it necessary since they do not have them yet. Yes, it is, because it will be building a good foundation of your child’s teeth for a lifetime. Babies are born with a full set of teeth, which start forming in 6-12 weeks in the pregnancy, but they are hidden under gums and will start emerging when your child reaches the age of 6 months and by the time they are 3 years they will get full set of 20 teeth which are called baby teeth or milk teeth. When the teeth start emerging, the teething pain can be painful and many babies experience sore gums. Early dental hygiene will prevent early issues like baby bottle decay, gum infections, and teething pain. Their teeth help in the way they speak and eat and infections and decay pain can worsen it. They hold roots of permanent teeth, and tooth loss can disturb the alignment too. If you are going to build this habit of oral hygiene as a parent, when your baby reaches the age of imitating and learning this habit will be built earlier and help them for a lifetime.
What You Should Do?
For many of us even if we wish to start taking care of our baby’s teeth we do not know when to start and how. Because it is impossible to brush and rinse to prevent plaque buildup. So, if your child has not erupted their teeth yet, then wipe their gums with a warm, clean, and damp cloth after feeding this will remove milk residue and bacteria. After their first tooth appears start using a soft, small brush to clean the tooth. When they start brushing use fluoride toothpaste which is going to help in strengthening tooth enamel. When they start having 2 teeth beside each other start flossing after they eat anything solid. While these are hygiene habits, you must incorporate preventing habits too like avoiding giving a bottle at night it will make the milk particles reside in the teeth and bacteria can cause cavities.
How Will Dentist Help?
Apart from building hygiene habits at home, regular dental visits are also very important in the journey of the dental health of a baby. It will help in removing the fear of seeing a dentist from an early age. Regular visits to pediatric dentists will allow them to assess your baby’s risk for cavities and other gum issues, and provide you with diet and advice on practices like thumb-sucking. For the baby’s emerging teeth dentist will provide you guidance on how you can ease their teething pain and safe products you may use. If your child’s teeth are being assessed by them, it will allow you to promptly take action on the dental issue your child might be facing, like fluoride treatment for enamel strength. Any other minor issues will be solved because it will be the starting of any problems and it is easier to solve them at the beginning.
