Frightening fact: Halloween night sees two to four times as many child pedestrian deaths than any other night of the year.  We want to make sure your little ghosts and goblins are safe and informed and encourage you to speak with them about halloween safety. This blog post will cover some talking points for you and your children to discuss, and also some things parents can do to make sure the kids in their community have an injury free night. Most of the tips are from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Centers for Disease Control and a couple were thought of by us!

-Make sure that your child’s costume isn’t longer than their ankles, or where their pants would normally hit. Doing this will help avoid trips and falls, and will decrease the chance of a jack-o-lantern candle igniting the fabric of their costume. Check to make sure your costumes use flame resistant fabric. Have a talk about being cautious of people’s yards, walkways, and porches.

-Opt for face makeup instead of a mask that can make it difficult to see. Be sure to test the face makeup a few days before halloween to make sure that skin doesn’t react badly.

-Make sure that your yard is free of sticks, hoses, toys, cords, and other tripping hazards. Check that all of your lightbulbs are working and that your pets are in a secure place.

-Establish a meeting place in case anyone gets lost or separated.

-Put a post it note or business card in your child’s Trick-Or-Treat bag just in case they are separated and need to call you.

-Consider drawing or painting on pumpkins instead of carving with a knife. Use a flashlight or glow stick instead of a candle in pumpkins to reduce the risk of fire and burns.

-Put a flashlight in your child’s trick-or-treat bucket for dark areas of your neighborhood.

-If your children are old enough to trick-or-treat alone (Safe Kids, a non-profit dedicated to preventing protecting kids from unintentional injuries says that children under 12 should not trick-or-treat alone) plan a route with them and review it a few times before they leave. Set a curfew. Stress the importance of staying in a group on well lit streets and sidewalks.

-Make sure everyone eats a good meal beforehand! Try one of the delicious and healthy Halloween meals we’ve shared on social media this month.

- Have fun and BRUSH YOUR TEETH WHEN YOU GET HOME!

Last weekend was the OFFICIAL start of summer! We’ve compiled some tips to make sure your summer is safe and full of smiles.

Just like we brush, floss, and visit the dentist to have healthy smiles, we also need to protect our skin by playing in the shade, wearing protective clothing, and applying sunscreen regularly.

We know that staying hydrated is an important part of day to day health, but it can also have a big impact on your kids’ oral health. We need to stay hydrated so that our bodies can create the saliva that washes away cavity causing bacteria. When we're playing hard outside, your kids may actually be thirsty when they are complaining of being hungry!!!  Reusable water-bottles to the rescue!

If you’re riding bikes, scooters, or skateboards be sure that your head is protected with a helmet. Check old helmets for damage and replace them every 5-10yrs to be sure the plastic is still solid and working right. Did you know that wearing a bike helmet reduces the risk of head injury by 50%? Let’s keep those smile holders intact this summer.

If you or your children haven’t received the COVID-19 vaccine, don’t forget to continue social distancing, hand washing, and covering our mouths with masks when in public, especially indoors (we're sooooo close to being done with this!).

Make sure your first aid kit is stocked with a kid friendly bug spray, antibacterial ointment, band aids, and hydrogen peroxide.

Protect your smiles by brushing for two minutes, twice a day. Limit sugary snacks, and visit our office every six months!

Most importantly, HAVE FUN! We have a download so that you can list and track the fun activities you have planned for your family.

Here are a few ideas if you need help getting started on your list:

• Visit a national park
• Make a WHOLE dinner over a campfire
• Practice a random act of kindness for a stranger
• Take a day trip to a place no one in the family has visited
• Make a blanket fort
• Make homemade ice cream
• Brush your teeth after eating homemade ice cream
• Go to a County Fair
• Make homemade popsicles (fruit anyone?)
• Check out a new bike or hiking trail
• Sleep outside in a tent
• Have a water balloon fight

What can you think of to fill it in??  We'd LOVE to see what your family has planned so bring it in to our office when you visit or share it with us on Social media! ❤️

Summer of Smiles To-Do List

During a typical November and December, millions of people gather around the table for a delicious meal and merriment. But as we know, this year has been anything but typical! If you’re planning on traveling this holiday season, here are some tips to help you and your loved ones stay healthy. We would like to emphasize that the surest way to keep everyone healthy is to stay home and celebrate only with the people who live in your home. We also realize that spending quality time with extended family and friends is important.

COMMUNICATION: The first step is clear communication. Whether you’re welcoming guests or traveling to see others, start a conversation about the precautions you’ll take and what kind of safety measures you plan to observe. For example...

GO OUTSIDE: If weather permits, eat outside! If it’s too cold to enjoy your meal outdoors, plan outside activities instead of indoor activities. Going on family walks is great ANY time, not just during a pandemic.

PRE and POST ISOLATE: Self isolate before and after your trip as much as possible to limit the possibility of spreading a virus. Remember that anyone can be an asymptomatic carrier of coronavirus!  Cutting down on socializing in your community helps protect the family you’re visiting. Staying home as much as possible after your visit helps protect your community from anything you were exposed to on your trip.  This is a season for kindness and thinking of others - social distancing and isolating when appropriate is the ultimate thoughtful gift!

DRIVE IF POSSIBLE: If you’re close enough, avoid the airport. Your interactions will be far fewer on a road trip than traveling by plane. Ventilation opportunities are far better, and you’ll have far more opportunities to introduce your children to the wonderful songs of your youth. ?

MAKE A PLAN: Make a plan for what will happen if someone does start showing symptoms of COVID-19.

CHANGE THE DATE: If it works with everyone's schedules, have get-togethers on the wrong dates! Try a Thanksgiving feast the weekend before or after Thanksgiving! Move Christmas Eve to January 2nd! Less people will be traveling, so there will be fewer people to come in contact with.  Hey - Christmas in July sounds nice too ?

SAYING NO IS OK: If you don't feel comfortable gathering around others, THAT'S OK! Tell your family and friends how you feel.  They will likely understand and may have the same concerns.  Holiday games and gatherings over Zoom or FaceTime won't be perfect, but you can make them more fun with some planning! Scavenger hunts, charades, there are lots of family games like these that can be virtually adapted.  You can cook together, eat together, and plan to ship gifts early for virtual opening!

Don’t forget to bring plenty of face masks and hand sanitizer, wash your hands as often as possible, and don’t forget to pack a toothbrush!  Cheers, and merry holidays to our patient families!

COVID-19 UPDATE

Hello!! We are so excited to see your smiling faces again starting next MONDAY May 18th
We have missed your kids a LOT and are very ready to start entering a new phase of this pandemic safely with our community. This has been a hard time for everyone – from not being able to play at the park and high five a friend to missing prom and graduation – and we feel for all of the families in our practice that adjusted to a “new normal.” Thank you all for your kindness and understand as our practice works to care for your kids!

We are beginning general patient care in PHASES and will be starting *PHASE ONE* next week. We are going to outline the changes our office has planned for upcoming visits so you know ahead of time and are prepared ??

WHAT DOES "PHASE ONE" MEAN?

• That means things are not quite normal yet… but we have a plan! (insert super-mom bitmoji with cape ?)
• Our *NUMBER ONE* priority is the oral health, safety and well-being of your child. We remain dedicated to high quality dental care from our Board-Certified Pediatric Dentists and staff. But this is new for everyone and dentistry may “look” different.

OK – WHAT’s DIFFERENT?

• Lots of stuff! We’ll break it down into parts for you here. Get cozy … This will be a long one!
• We’ve also attached a more “condensed” photo to this post if you need the quick gist.
• We also have a little “FAQ” section down in the comments for your entertainment and information. If you have another question for us... fire away!

SOCIAL DISTANCING:

• We’ll be staggering family and patient appointment times to avoid overlap in our clinic
• We’ll be prioritizing some patients and some procedures that are more urgent
• We are probably going to change your kids’ appointment times (FACE SLAP! ??‍♀️) – WE KNOW! This is very hard and annoying!! But we want to keep social distancing practices in the office, which means we need to see fewer people each day. And we have 8 weeks of cancelled patient visits to accommodate! Our staff may need cookies and smiles… virtual hugs work too.
• Our goal is that your family will ONLY interact with necessary staff for patient care, and we are documenting everyone your child contacts
• Only scheduled patient(s) plus one adult guardian will be allowed in the building. This is our new “Patient Plus One” policy. Adults will be asked to accompany the patient(s) back into clinic or will be asked to wait in their cars for treatment to be completed. Infants (under age 1) are not included in this count and should be in an infant carrier or stroller at all times.

PRE-SCREENING:

• All patients will be screened prior to arrival to our office!
• 48 hours before your appointment date, you’ll receive an email with instructions to our Patient Portal (you can also get there from our website if you already have your log-in!) and receive a text message appointment reminder with instructions to check your email
• ALL PATIENTS MUST COMPLETE ON-LINE FORMS BEFORE THEIR VISIT – this can be done on a computer, smart phone, or tablet. It’s quite easy!
• If you don’t have an email on-file, contact our office. Your emails are secured on an HIPPA-compliant local server and are NOT USED for anything other than patient communication with our team.
• If your forms are not completed, your child’s appointment will be cancelled
• 24 hours before your appointment, our staff will call and confirm your appointment with you and review your screening questions. Some answers may require our office to postpone your appointment by 2 weeks. We will also review instructions for the next day!
• Make sure your child brushes very well the night before and the morning of their appointment

WHEN YOU ARRIVE:

• Wait in your car and call our front desk to let them know you have arrived. A staff-member will then greet you at the door and escort you in.
• Wear a cloth mask or face-covering into the building. This can be the same mask you wear to the grocery store or when out in public in the community! Everyone age 4 and older is asked to wear a mask. Your child’s mask will be removed when it’s time for treatment.
• Any scheduled patient and accompanying adult will again be asked screening questions and will have a no-touch temporal (forehead) temperature checked and recorded
• Everyone entering the building will be given hand-sanitizer before proceeding into the clinic area
• All patients will then be escorted to the clinic area. The accompanying adult will either follow them to clinic or return to the car. We’ll let you know when your kiddo is done and escort them out!
• Patients will be asked to rinse with an anti-microbial mouthwash (if they are old enough to swish and spit) or will have their mouth swabbed with a gentle sponge and the anti-microbial mouthwash. The American Dental Association recommends this before treatment starts!

DURING THE APPOINTMENT:

• Our NUMBER ONE priority is the oral health, safety and well-being of your child! This is always true, and we will not compromise our treatment and care ❤️
• Because of regulations on procedure types and patient safety, we may not be able to do all of your kids’ planned treatment right now. That means new treatment plans or postponing appointments with “smaller” cavities may occur.
• We may present less-invasive treatments for now. We may monitor something we had planned to fix. But we will not compromise the well-being and oral health of your child. In Pediatric Dentistry there are LOTS of acceptable treatment options! Even if our “perfect plan” can’t happen right now, eventually we will get there together.
• If your kiddo is scheduled for a check-up and an exam, you may notice that we will use more “hand tools” and less “power tools” than before. Some of your kids may actually be very happy about this(?)!! We are still providing the same quality, standard-of-care as before, so don’t fret! It’s just more work for the Pediatric Dentist to do things by hand ?
• When your child is done, they will be escorted to the check-out area and dismissed with you or brought out to your car to meet you. If we need to set up any follow-up visits or review payment or treatment options, we may do that by phone with you.

OK… SO WHAT ABOUT YOU GUYS?:

• We are following ALL GUIDELINES from the American Dental Association (ADA), Iowa Dental Board (IDB), Center for Disease Control (CDC), Iowa Department of Public Health (IDPH), Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry (AAPD). This is A LOT of new information and new stuff!
• We’ve set up new protocols and guidelines for all staff members to follow in accordance with these guidelines. And if one guideline is stricter than what we “legally” have to do here in Iowa… we do the stricter one. Our community’s safety is a priority.
• We’ve trained everyone on our staff and watched a lot of webinars and continuing education classes over the last 8 weeks! ?
• Rest assured that our staff is ALSO screened daily for symptoms, will have daily temperature-checks, and are discouraged from non-essential travel. Any staff member with symptoms will be asked to go home and check with their medical doctor before they can return to our office.
• We have no known staff exposures to COVID-19 and the at this time. If an exposure were to occur, we will contact the Linn County Department of Public Health and follow all instructions on how to proceed.
• We’ll be wearing new PPE, including masks and face shields at all times. This protects your family and protects us! It is super important! For some procedures, we may even have gowns and special “respirator” masks. Oh boy – do we look silly!
  Our smiling faces are still under there with our stellar personalities – don’t worry! ?
• We are cleaning all public surfaces continually
• We are sterilizing and disinfecting all patient care areas continually
• We have specialized HEPA filters in our treatment rooms and have verified the excellent air-flow with our building engineers in our new and updated offices. We are SO excited that both of our offices are so new and modern ?
• 

ANYTHING ELSE I NEED TO KNOW?:

• During Phase One we are going to postpone appointments on any health-compromised patient and patients living in community-living arrangements. This is, again, using guidelines and standards from governing bodies.
• We can do TELE-DENTISTRY by video conference or phone/photo combination. It’s kind of cool ? and very useful. It is secure and compliant with HIPPA privacy regulations. We will walk you through it! Some of you may have done this with other medical providers recently, too.
• If you have ANY questions or concerns, contact our Pediatric Dental Team. We are happy to help! And if your child needs ANYTHING at all during this time or you have concerns about comfort, pain or treatment, please contact us. We always have a Pediatric Dentist on-call if something happens outside of clinic hours. And we want to address all of your oral health needs.
• If your family DOES NOT FEEL COMFORTABLE coming into our clinic at this time, for any reason, that is OK! Let us know and we will make arrangements for a tele-dentistry appointment, phone consultation, or an appointment at a later date for you.
• We really do miss you all and look forward to an upcoming interaction with your family! ❤️❤️❤️