While making your list for purchasing school supplies, remember to review the back to school dental checklist below, to ensure your child’s best health and success throughout the upcoming school year.

Using your pediatric back to school dental checklist can help avoid potential absences due to emergency dental appointments that could have been prevented. So, start the school by prioritizing your child’s dental health routine on your back to school To Do List.

1. Review Oral Hygiene Routine

Evaluate your child’s regimen for oral hygiene at the end of the relaxed summer schedule. Make sure that your daily plan for the back to school routine includes having your child brushing for at least two minutes twice daily and flossing. Check your child’s brushing technique and provide any needed additional guidance to ensure that brushing will remove plaque and bacteria.

2. Replace Your Child’s Toothbrush.

According to the American Dental Association, toothbrushes should be replaced after three to four months of use, or sooner if bristles show signs of fraying. The start of the new school year provides a good prompt to remind you to replace toothbrushes. (Winter break and spring break are additional good period markers for toothbrush replacement.)

3. Schedule a Dental Checkup.

Scheduling a dental checkup before the start of the school year helps you keep track of the length of time since your child’s last exam and teeth cleaning. Your child’s dentist will perform a thorough examination, checking for any signs of tooth decay, weak enamel, and cavities that should be treated before school starts. Schedule the exam for at least a month prior to school starting, so any cavities can be filled and other issues addressed without risk of missing any school days.

4. Protect Against Injuries.

Injuries to teeth are a common risk in playing sports, especially in contact sports like soccer, basketball, football, and hockey. If your child participates in school sports practices, or in after-school recreational sports activities, consider obtaining a mouth guard to help protect against dental injuries.

5. Make Healthy Lunches and Snacks.

Packing healthy lunch food items into your child’s lunches is probably already included in your meal planning. But, often, substituting to include foods and beverages that are good for children’s teeth can be overlooked. Some snack items that are better for dental health include string cheeses, vegetables, and fruits. Avoid serving snacks like fruit roll-ups and snack bars that stick to teeth and between teeth. Also, consider packing water or no-sugar beverages, instead of soda or high-sugar fruit drinks.

6. Have an Orthodontist Evaluation.

The American Association of Orthodontists recommends that children have an examination at age 7. The exam at that age can help your child’s orthodontist set up a personalized plan for your child’s orthodontic care, based on his or her growth rate and unique dental issues, (like a poor bite, overcrowding, etc.). The orthodontist may not suggest braces for a 7-year old, but for an older child who needs braces, it’s best to have them put on the teeth prior to the start of school.

Red Apple Pediatric Dental Team

Your Red Apple dental expert is dedicated to your child’s oral health. If it is time to have a checkup before school start, or any time through the year, contact Red Apple Pediatric Dental Team, Stafford VA, at (540) 318-5577 to make an appointment.

Though some children may grind or clench their teeth while awake, bruxism is often an issue when children sleep.

Bruxism—gnashing, grinding, or clenching of teeth—is common among children. In fact, twenty to thirty percent of all children experience it. Bruxism is a big part of what pediatric dentists help children with. Though some children may grind or clench their teeth while awake, bruxism is often an issue when children sleep. Children may not be aware of it unless someone hears them doing it.

Possible Causes

If your child experiences bruxism, especially while sleeping, it may be the result of anxiety, stress, hyperactivity, or how the upper and lower teeth contact each other.

What to Look For

Check your child occasionally while they sleep to listen and watch for indications of grinding, gnashing, or clenching. Ask your child if he or she is having headaches, earaches or a sore jaw. Ask if your child is experiencing pain when chewing. They may also be tired from a lack of sufficient sleep.

What You Should Do

Often, bruxism is minor, and children eventually outgrow it without it having long-term effects on their health. Over a long period, however, bruxism can lead to other issues including teeth enamel loss or sleep disorders such as apnea.

If your child experiences bruxism, and you suspect it is stress-related, talk to him or her about what may be causing the stress. Then plan how to relieve that stress or hyperactivity before bedtime. Consider, for example, playing soothing music, reading a book, or having your child take a warm shower.

If that doesn’t help, consult your pediatric dentist for an accurate diagnosis. There may be a simple reason, such as poorly-aligned teeth. It is not unusual for children to require a custom-fitted mouthguard which can prevent cracking, breaking, or premature teeth wear.

Summer is a busy time for families, but it’s important not to let your kids’ oral hygiene slip.

Just a few weeks of skipping dental care can lead to problems later on.

Here are some summer dental care tips for kids.

1. Don’t wait to schedule a checkup. Many families wait until just before school starts to schedule pediatric dentist checkups. By this time your dentist may not have any appointments available. Instead, schedule a checkup as soon as school lets out, or before you leave on your family vacation.
2. Pack extra dental care tools for kids at camp. Items tend to get lost at summer camp, and you don’t want your child to skip brushing for two weeks because of a lost toothbrush. Pack doubles or even triples of toothbrushes, toothpaste, floss and mouth rinse.
3. Use mouth guards when appropriate. Increased summer activity means a higher risk of a dental emergency. If your kids are participating in rambunctious sports like off-road biking, rugby or something else, encourage them to wear a mouth guard.
4. Substitute sugary junk food for natural treats. Summertime is full of sugary temptations like ice cream and popsicles. Reduce sugar intake by learning how to make delicious natural treats like frozen fresh fruit or  ice cold smoothies.
5. Enforce pool rules. With so much water play, the chances for a slippery accident are heightened in summer. Make sure your kids follow standard pool safety rules like no running or diving poolside. Explain how to make sure the water is clear of swimmers before jumping in.
6. Be ready for dental emergencies. Take the time to make a small dental emergency kit for your purse or glove compartment. Pack gauze, over the counter pain medicine and a small empty bottle to hold any tooth that gets knocked out.

Why not take care of your child’s summer dental checkup appointment right now? Contact us now to schedule a convenient time before summer gets busy.

Why Does My Child Need General Anesthesia?

The following is to address some questions and concerns we often face in our world of Pediatric Dentistry and General Anesthesia. The biggest being “Why does my child need General Anesthesia?”

At Red Apple, we take in, and treat up to 120 new patients a month. I know, crazy right?! Out of that 120 patients, we may come across 2-3 children who have significant enough anxiety, behavioral issues, or treatment needed that we recommend General Anesthesia for it to be done. That’s roughly 2% of our patient population. So being as uncommon as it is, we still find the need and have seen the demand for it. General Anesthesia is a form of sedation, which is administered by an IV. This is in a controlled setting, with a team of highly skilled and trained individuals.

Our Anesthesia provider Dr. Sandhu is a dental anesthesiologist, meaning he specializes in anesthesia specifically for dental treatment. Before we do General Anesthesia in the office, we first get a significant medical history from the parents and also have them see their pediatrician as a precautionary visit to make sure they are in their peak health and can handle going under. After we have reviewed the child and family medical histories, we then get the OK from our Anesthesia provider, and the child can be scheduled for their appointment.

Why Do We Do It In The Office Instead Of The Hospital?

We offer General Anesthesia as a convenience to our patients, and nothing more. We previously had privileges at the local hospital, but they did not have the proper equipment for Dental, and we would have to mobilize ours and that leaves room for error.

We like to have every resource available to us, and what better way to ensure that than doing it in our own office where we have everything we need for dental? The anesthesiologist has already specially mobilized his equipment and has his own operating room on wheels. We set up everything the same day, run the functions tests, and begin getting ready for the cases.

Why doesn’t our office submit to insurances for anesthesia?

Our office is only contracted with dental insurances, and only for our provider. Our anesthesia provider is a private contractor and his own entity. For us to submit to anesthesia he would have to be an employee of our practice and contracted with our insurances. And he is simply not. We typically only find the need for his services every 6-8 weeks. We do however submit and handle all dental related claims and assist you in every way we can to make the reimbursement process as easy as possible. The anesthesiologist provides you with a detailed “superbill” at the end of the case which will contain his professional information including his Tax ID, GA license number, the CDT(dental) codes, ICD-9(medical) codes, diagnostic codes, the fee paid by you for services rendered. The form also specifically states you already paid for these services and should be reimbursed directly. We recommend submitting one to the Dental and Medical insurance companies as most of the time, these procedures are deemed medically necessary due to age, behavioral diagnosis, or amount of treatment needed.

We hope this will create an understanding and clear up any confusion regarding the General Anesthesia services offered at our practice. There is no monetary gain for us, it is only to make our patient’s experiences as comfortable as possible, and to make it as convenient as possible for the parents. In the event that any of our patient’s parents are not comfortable having anesthesia done in the office, we will always gladly provide a referral to another local dentist who will take them to Fredericksburg Mary Washington Health Campus. We only want what’s best for our patients and what they’ll feel most comfortable with! If you have questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact us and we would be more than happy to answer in as much detail as possible.

We are in business to make sure that children possess the happiest, and one of the healthiest smiles around!

For more than two decades now, we have been offering our clients with some of the best tricks, tips, and products recommendations for their children.

Are you worried that your children may not have the best smiles around? Don’t worry! Meet Jenny Silverstone, chief editor at Mom Loves Best. Jenny is a local mom, here in Stafford, VA letting you know why your child’s dental health is important, what you can expect to see as far as dental development at various ages, and tips to keep those chompers clean!

In Mom Loves Best’s recent blog post, she gives you the Ultimate Guide to Helping Children Have Healthy Teeth & effective ways that you can help your kids protect these important pearly whites. A few examples in her infographic include:

Wipe the Kid’s Gum

So, how do you go about ensuring that your child has healthy teeth?  First, it is important to begin oral hygiene way early by wiping the baby’s gums even before the appearance of the first teeth.

Avoid cases of liquid pooling in your kid’s mouth

There is an acid-producing type of bacteria work on breaking simple sugars that include lactose, table sugar, and fructose, and if liquids pool in the kid’s mouth for several hours, it can go ahead to coat your kid’s teeth, an aspect that will lead to tooth decay.

Flossing

As soon as teeth appear, you need to master your child’s teeth well. Soon as your child’s teeth touch, it is vital to begin flossing to prevent tooth decay. This is followed by ensuring that you use toothpaste the size of a grain of rice for kids below three years, and the size of a pea after there.

Again, avoid pacifiers as your children’s teeth continue growing so that the teeth stay in place. Keep sugary foods away, and make oral care fun for them and finally, make sure that you take your kids for regular dental checkups.

If your children have well-maintained teeth that are clean and attractive, then their confidence and self-esteem will be high!  Contact us if you need dental health checkups for your children.