February is National Children’s Health Month.
If you have not scheduled your child’s dental examination and cleaning for this year, please take this time to write a reminder to yourself. Children’s oral health is as important as the rest of their overall health. Starting good oral habits can prevent a myriad of dental problems. Baby teeth should be examined, and cleaned, by dental professionals, twice a year starting at age two or earlier in some cases.
For most children baby teeth will be replaced by adult teeth, but that does not mean that baby teeth do not have an important job. Primary teeth hold space for the developing adult teeth, and when adult teeth are congenitally missing, may even serve as the patient’s permanent teeth. If a baby tooth has a large enough cavity, or is infected, it could damage the developing permanent tooth; therefore, it is crucial to maintain a healthy dentition at all ages.
If you are unsure where or not your dental insurance covers your child, check with your insurance carrier or call our office and we can check for you. We find that some of our adult patients do not even realize their children have full benefits, under a covered parent, up to 26 years of age for some carriers. If you do not have insurance, check with your child’s school nurse’s office and see if you child qualifies for dental coverage, even if you do not. The State of Oregon, under ODS has a special program for qualifying children.
As a way of increasing dental health awareness in children, during the month of February the American Dental Association (ADA) holds its Give Kids A Smile (GKAS) program. The program is celebrating its 10th year , and has annually provided nearly 450,000 children with much needed dental services. Over 9000 dentists and 30,000 volunteers turn out for this ADA organized event. It helps us members show our presence as an organization and gives us an opportunity to see the tremendous dental needs outside of our everyday practices. If you want to know more about your, or your child’s, oral health give us a call, or you can check the newly launched ADA website called www.MouthHealthy.org.
