Does Your Child Need a Pediatric Dentist?

Children are not merely shrunken versions of adults. Just as medicine includes a specialization for meeting the medical needs of newborns and growing children, dentistry has a specialization for responding to the unique dental needs of young people — pediatric dentistry. 

What special training do pediatric dentists receive? 

Every pediatric dentist near you completes a two-year residency program focusing on the dental needs of children. That’s after completing a four-year degree program in general dentistry. During those two additional years of training to treat children, kids’ dentists learn: 

• Diagnostic and surgical techniques, especially for children
• Child psychology and development
• Dental pharmacology (drug treatment), including delivery and dosage requirements unique to kids
• Radiology techniques
• Trauma management and treatment
• Conscious sedation and general anesthesia
• Special needs dentistry for children

A particular focus of many pediatric dental practices, including kids dentists in Livonia, is preventative dental care. Kids dentists will try to teach and instil good oral care habits in kids — and their parents — to set them up for a lifetime of good oral health. From the start, a pediatric dentist in Livonia will teach kids proper brushing and flossing techniques, often using kid-friendly materials like videos and comic books.

Do pediatric dentists treat kids differently than adults?

Kids’ dentists in Livonia know better than anyone that dental treatment can be stressful for children. Their goal is to reduce that stress in the moment and to eliminate the anxiety associated with a visit to the dental office going forward. 

They do that in several ways, including using specially designed equipment; decorating and arranging their offices in kid-friendly ways (think colours, furniture, and toys); rewards; early education in fun ways; dentists who speak the child’s home language; and sedation for particularly stressful events.

Some children come with special needs. Those needs might relate directly to the child’s mouth and teeth, such as severe misalignment or a cleft lip or palate. A child may have underlying medical conditions such as autism or bleeding disorders that need to be taken into account. Pediatric dentists are trained to support families and children with special needs. Those dentists will count on the child’s parents to give them all the information they need to provide sensitive and safe care.

When should a child first go to a dentist?

Parents are recommended to take their infant child to a dentist in Livonia within six months of their first tooth breaking through. Up to that point, parents will have been cleaning their child’s gums and those first new teeth at home. Do not wait until a problem seems to have emerged before making that first dental visit. 

Preventative treatment and early intervention have three important benefits: you’ll discover how well your cleaning-at-home has been done; your child’s dentist can discover and respond to an issue before it becomes complicated, and your child will learn right from the start that dentists are not to be feared. There is a pediatric dentist in Livonia ready to meet your infant and get him or her on a path toward a healthy mouth for life. 

As for how long your child should see a pediatric dentist as opposed to a general dentist near you, a pediatric dentist in Livonia can treat your child well into their teenage years, to roughly age 16. Your kid’s dentist will be able to identify any early need for eventual orthodontic treatment and may also recommend when it is appropriate to transition to a general dentistry practice.

If you have an infant or child with new teeth, congratulations! Take the first and easy step toward ensuring your child has a lifetime with healthy teeth by contacting a pediatric dentist in Livonia.