Sealants Make Sense — Not Simply Throughout Kids’s Dental Well being Month

There’s a too-common false impression that having high quality oral well being care isn’t as essential for kids as a result of child tooth fall out and are naturally changed — giving the phantasm that any points with child tooth will resolve themselves as soon as they’re gone. Nonetheless, that isn’t the case in any respect.  

February is Nationwide Kids’s Dental Well being Month, making this a good time to speak in regards to the year-round advantages of optimum oral well being — together with preventive care — for kids. Incorporating good oral well being care practices and training into a toddler’s routine can set them up for fulfillment later in life.  

One notably essential instrument for kids’s oral well being are sealants. That’s why this 12 months, the American Dental Affiliation (ADA) is educating adults on the advantages of dental sealants for kids’s tooth.  

“Sealants are probably the most efficient strategies we now have to guard a toddler’s tooth from cavity-causing micro organism,” stated Dr. Amber Bonnaig, DentaQuest’s dental director in Georgia. “Displaying kids how one can correctly brush and floss their tooth is most essential and helps develop life-long oral well being habits, however sealants are a essential security web to cease early phases of decay from changing into a full-blown cavity.”  

Why Sealants Are Important 

A sealant is a skinny, protecting coating that adheres to the chewing floor of an individual’s again tooth. As soon as utilized, the sealant flows into the grooves of the molars — areas which are more durable to achieve by way of brushing and flossing — after which hardens. Consider a sealant like a raincoat, however as an alternative of defending you from rain, it’s making a protecting barrier between a toddler’s tooth and meals and plaque. In keeping with the ADA, sealants have been confirmed to scale back the danger of tooth decay by practically 80% in molars. 

Tooth decay, additionally referred to as caries, is among the most typical power illnesses amongst U.S. kids. In actual fact, according to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about 20% of kids ages 5 to 11 have not less than one untreated decayed tooth and about 13% of adolescents ages 12 to 19 have the identical. If left untreated, tooth decay could cause pointless ache and infections and can lead to severe penalties, such as problems eating, speaking and learning.  

Sealants are additionally extra value efficient, well timed and painless than enduring cavities and coverings like fillings or crowns. By making use of sealants to a toddler’s tooth early on, each dentists and sufferers can save time, cash and presumably stop extra in depth procedures sooner or later.  

Emphasizing Prevention 

Sealants are a essential instrument within the arsenal in relation to preventive care. DentaQuest’s purpose is to forestall oral well being issues earlier than they happen, and a wholesome oral well being future begins with training and prevention. It’s why we work to assist households prioritize preventive care, starting during pregnancy, into childhood and all through an individual’s grownup life. It’s additionally why we provide applications to reward suppliers for his or her preventive care efforts.  

One instance of DentaQuest’s dedication to preventive care is a bonus fee program not too long ago carried out in Tennessee. DentaQuest supplied a Preventistry Bonus Fee to the highest two suppliers who had the most important variety of accomplished sealants and silver diamine fluoride (SDF) therapies. These bonus funds got to acknowledge practitioners for offering Medicaid enrollees with unbelievable preventive care.  

“Sealants are a straightforward and efficient method to battle towards early childhood caries, making this protecting barrier a wonderful safety measure in relation to your baby’s oral well being,” Bonnaig stated.