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If you are a parent, you will know how important it is for your children to have healthy teeth. As our dental health can affect our overall health and wellbeing, it is encouraged that parents take their children to see a dentist regularly to ensure they have good oral health.

Dentistry is important for children to prevent tooth decay and oral diseases, which is why children need to have regular checkups as they may not be aware of their oral hygiene habits.

If you are based in Essex, you will be happy to know that there are high-quality dental practices that offer children’s dentistry Essex, including our own, Crofts Dental Practice based in Epping, Essex.

About our practice

Crofts Dental Practice is a family dental practice that has been providing patients with high-quality treatments within modern dentistry for over 30 years. Our dentists offer all our patients a high level of patient care and are skilled in providing dental treatments within various areas of dentistry, such as general, cosmetic and restorative dentistry. We also offer free six monthly checkups for the children of our adult patients who are registered with us to encourage them to bring their children to our practice from an early age.

Why children need to see a dentist

Children’s dentistry Essex is different from that of adults because children have many baby teeth, which leaves them more susceptible to cavities, gum disease or, even worse, tooth loss. So through regular appointments at our dental practice, our dentist can help in the prevention of all these issues by carefully monitoring your child’s dental health.

At Crofts Dental Practice, we provide a number of preventive dental treatments to our child patients, with one being fluoride applications.

Fluoride applications

Fluoride applications can reduce the risk of dental cavities and strengthen your child’s teeth. Fluoride is a mineral that is found in both water and soil and can make enamel harder. Such treatments can be used either as preventives or to repair any damaged areas in a child’s mouth.

At Crofts Dental Practice, if we have offered fluoride application for your child, our dentist will paint the fluoride on the surface of your child’s teeth to help mineralise them. This is a safe and effective treatment that can achieve an effective level of fluoride in the saliva. If needed, our dentist will also apply fissure sealants, which are tooth-coloured plastic coatings that can be applied to the biting surfaces of your child’s teeth to prevent bacteria and food debris from getting stuck in the teeth. Fissure sealants can also reduce the risk of tooth decay.

Bringing your child to our dental team at Crofts Dental Practice regularly can also allow our dentist to spot whether there are other issues with your child’s teeth such as the development of an underbite, overbite or crossbite. The sooner these issues are identified by our dentist, the quicker you will be able to treat and correct these issues and guarantee better dental health in your child’s future.

No child is born with a fear of the dentist, so that all important first visit must be a pleasant and enjoyable experience. As far as children’s dentistry Essex is concerned our practice encourages parents to expose their children to our dental surgery at an early age. We want them to experience interaction with our highly-trained staff who are even careful of the words they use when dealing with children, because we don’t want them to be frightened in any way, shape or form. How a child perceives the dentist after a first visit is how they will regard them for the rest of their life. We don’t want any bad memories sitting at the back of their brain as they move through their teens and into adulthood. To encourage parents to bring their children we offer a special six monthly check-up programme that allows us to keep track of how a child’s teeth, gums and jawbone are developing as they grow up.

Building a solid dental foundation

Children’s dentistry Essex at our practice recognises how important it is for children to feel safe and secure and we make every effort to provide a warm, welcoming and friendly atmosphere at our surgery. We strive to build a solid foundation and understanding of how important dental care is to an individual’s wellbeing. It’s far easier to encourage a child from an early age about how they should look after their mouth when you have become their friend. Trust is one of the most important elements of the relationship that we build with a child. This trust will allow us to be able to be frank about dental care as a child grows up.

What treatments do we offer for children?

Crofts Dental Practice is able to offer the full range of treatments necessary to deal with children’s oral health and children’s dentistry Essex. Our team offers basic services such as regular examinations and cleaning, as well as more specialised treatments like teeth straightening as a child matures. Our emphasis is always on preventive dentistry, educating children on why it is so important to maintain good oral hygiene practices. Fortunately, because we encourage our patients to bring their children into the surgery from an early age, we are able to detect any conditions swiftly and treat them before the situation deteriorates.

Maintaining dental care in children

Dental care is not only brushing and flossing but also diet and because we interact with children from an early age we are able to advise them on why it is important to maintain a healthy diet. Sugary drinks and sweets, especially hard boiled sweets can all be very harmful to growing teeth and maturing gums. When it comes to sporting activities we are able to discuss with children the importance of perhaps wearing a gumshield in close contact sports.

Prevention is always better than cure

We want our young patients to grow into healthy adults so that they can eventually bring their own families to us and we can go through the same process with them. Our adult patients will have been educated by us and that allows them to endorse what we tell our young patients. We know that eradicating all tooth decay and gum and jaw disease is a difficult task, but at least our patients know and understand how important oral hygiene is to maintaining a healthy life.

Thinking that you don’t need to worry about your children’s teeth until their adult ones come through? Then think again. Read these government statistics on decay in children’s teeth to find out why:

• 25% of children aged 5 have tooth decay, often in three or four teeth;
• Almost 8,000 children aged six and under have had to have teeth extracted in hospital;
• In 2012-13, tooth decay was the most common reason for children going into hospital;
• In 2014-15, 63,000 children aged up to 19 went into hospital for tooth extractions.

While the decay issue is worse in the North, in 2015, 20% of five-year-olds in the South East had tooth decay.

Not even going into how much money this costs the NHS, let’s look at what tooth decay means for your children.

Teeth problems for life

Decay doesn’t sit still, it moves through the tooth and it can jump from tooth to tooth too. It can jump sideways to neighbouring teeth, but it can also get into the adult teeth that are sitting behind decaying milk teeth, waiting to come through. Not taking children’s dentistry seriously can give children dental problems for life.

Teach them how to brush

Children get more decay than adults because there is a lot more sugar in their diets: snacks, juices (acid and sugar is a sure-fire decay-causing combination) and sweets. They also have not yet mastered the skills and habits to make them diligent brushers. Brushing the back teeth well is hard to master, as is standing still at a sink for two minutes twice a day. Boring! Even for adults.

The hygienist at Crofts Dental Practice in Essex can make tooth brushing education fun.

Treatments to keep teeth safe

We can help protect your children’s teeth against decay with fluoride treatments to mineralise the teeth. We can also paint fissure sealants onto the chewing surfaces of the back teeth to provide a barrier against the acids that cause decay.

What you can do

Start bringing your children in to see us as young as possible and teach them that visiting the dentist is a positive experience, to help them create lifelong good habits for their teeth.

Much like an adult, a child with oral problems can develop other health problems. This is why preventive oral care is so crucial for your child and their developing teeth.

At Crofts Dental Practice, we are passionate about children’s dentistry in Essex and we encourage our patients to bring their children for dental check-ups as soon as their first teeth begin to appear. This can be from as early as four months to as late as 18 months. Our experienced dentists are very friendly and will make your child feel at ease through every step of the procedure. Our dental team can provide a number of preventive treatments for children, including fluoride applications and fissure sealants.

Fluoride applications

Fluoride has been used by the dental profession for many years to help prevent tooth decay, which is why fluoride is present in toothpaste and sometimes added to tap water. Fluoride helps strengthen the teeth through a process called remineralisation, where the mineral attaches to the weakened areas of tooth enamel and helps restore it. Fluoride can benefit patients of all ages, but is particularly important for children whose teeth are still developing. This is because fluoride can help them achieve stronger and decay-resistant teeth over a lifetime. Another important benefit of fluoride is that it can reverse early tooth decay.

Dental sealants

Even if your child regularly brushes and flosses their teeth, they are still at risk of developing cavities and tooth decay. This is partly due to the fact that children tend to ignore the back of their mouth when brushing and this many encourage the accumulation of bacteria and plaque in these problem areas. For this reason, dentists recommend dental sealants as soon as your child’s permanent teeth come in.

Dental sealants are protective plastic coatings that seal the chewing surfaces of the back teeth – especially the molars – preventing food particles and bacteria from entering through the grooves of the teeth. Sealants are very effective because they can last up to 10 years, however, they need to be checked regularly to ensure that they are not broken or chipped away.