pediatric dentist

Let's Talk Children's Dental Health Month with Cedar Rapids Pediatric Dentistry

February 6th, 2020

February is Pediatric Dental Health Month, and we’re excited to kick things off with some tips on keeping your family’s smiles healthy.

Modeling Behavior

Creating good dental habits for your children should start as soon as they wake up. Before breakfast, you should brush your teeth with your kiddos. When children are learning good habits, modeling the behavior can be beneficial. Let them watch you, and then work with them on their skills.

Brushing and Flossing

Start with a soft bristle toothbrush and fluoride toothpaste. Tooth paste amount is important for their safety and should be put on by a grownup until they are old enough.  One-year-olds should have a smear of toothpaste the size of a grain of rice. Three-year-olds and up can have a pea-sized ball of toothpaste.  Children will need help with brushing until they are about 7 years old or until they are finished with 2nd grade!  Brushing along gumlines is hard – and little wrists may have a hard time reaching everywhere.

Flossing is important because it removes plaque and food that is between teeth. Brushing can only go so far, and flossing does the rest of the job. It’s not only good for your mouth, but helps prevent bad breath, which makes morning cuddles with your kiddos much more enjoyable. Even if your kids’ teeth aren’t touching, you can still work on forming the habit from a young age. Because gums are sensitive, parents should be in charge of flossing until age 6 or 7when kids have better control over fine motor skills.

In addition to brushing and flossing twice a day, you can also take extra steps to protecting your kids’ teeth. The molar teeth are most susceptible to cavities for two reasons. First, their chewing surface have more pits and fissures than the rest of the teeth (they are the wrinkles and grooves on the biting sides!). This can make it more difficult for toothbrush bristles to clean the chewing surface. Second, the majority of chewing is done with your molars, increasing the chances of food and bacteria getting stuck and causing decay.

Preventative Options

To protect your children’s molars, we may recommend an application of sealant when they fully come in.  These grown-up teeth usually start to come in by age-6 for the first set and age-12 for the second set.  They are usually finished growing in about 2-3 years after they poke through, and a protective sealant on their biting surfaces can really minimize the chance of a cavity on these important grown-up teeth!  A report published in July, 2017 by the Cochrane Collaboration, a group that studies and analyzes health information, found that the prevalence of cavities was reduced by 51% in children whose teeth were treated with a sealant.  That’s a lot!  It’s one of the beneficial preventative things we can do to protect them.

Healthy Choices

Brushing, flossing and visiting Cedar Rapids Pediatric Dentistry can help keep yoru teeth and gums healthy.  But it’s important to keep them healthy on the inside too! What you give kiddos for snack and what you put on your family’s dinner table has a big impact on their dental health. Be sure to include colorful fruit and vegetables in your family meals!  Be sure to visit our FaceBook Page HERE for more great snack and meal ideas for your family.

 

Let's Talk About Child Abuse Prevention with Cedar Rapids Pediatric Dentistry

April 15th, 2019

While April is known for showers and spring flowers, it’s also National Child Abuse
Prevention Month. President Barack Obama issued a Presidential proclamation in 2016
saying, “During National Child Abuse Prevention Month, we recommit to giving every
child a chance to succeed and to ensuring that every child grows up in a safe, stable,
and nurturing environment that is free from abuse and neglect.” 2019’s theme is “Strong
and Thriving Families.” You may have noticed blue pinwheels while you’re out and
about: these are a symbol for child abuse prevention.
I know that this is a difficult topic, but it is a really important one and something we
should be talking about. It is important for us to be advocates for children and families
and to help them find the resources they need. Protecting children is everyone’s job.
The World Health Organization defines child abuse as “all forms of physical and/or
emotional ill-treatment, sexual abuse, neglect or negligent treatment or commercial or
other exploitation, resulting in actual or potential harm to a child’s health, survival,
development or dignity in the context of a relationship of responsibility, trust or power.”
There’s a 2019 Resource Prevention Guide and Tip Sheets that deal with subjects like temper
tantrums, keeping your family strong, stress and finances, building resilience in your
kids and much more!
The following are six protective factors for families:
1.  Nurturing and attachment
2.  Knowledge of parenting and child development
3.  Parental resilience
4.  Social connections
5.  Concrete support for families
6.  Social and emotional competence of children
It would be wonderful if we could all commit to preventing child abuse and neglect and
remember that every child matters. Let’s stand up, not only for our children, but for all
children in our community with whom we come in contact on a daily basis. We can
make a difference by learning more about this difficult topic and loving, noticing, and
supporting those around us.

Gratitude with Cedar Rapids Pediatric Dentistry

November 25th, 2018

The topic of GRATITUDE seems to be everywhere this month. Why is it important? How do we
incorporate it into our kids’ lives? Why is a Pediatric Dentist office in Cedar Rapids
talking about gratitude?
Robert A. Emmins, Ph.D. is a professor of psychology and gratitude expert at UC Davis who
has spent years researching how gratitude practices impact overall mental and physical health.
He has found that people who are grateful have higher self esteem, are more resilient, less
retaliatory, and happier overall.

Attitude of Gratitude

-Set up a gratitude station at your house for the holiday season. Create the
opportunity for people to share with their family members what makes them feel grateful
about them. For ours, we put a piece of Kraft Paper on the wall and then taped a lunch bag for each
family member onto it. We put some index cards and pencils on the table below and voila! A
place to reflect on gratitude and share those feelings with the ones we love most. It could also
be as simple as putting a notebook in a common area for everyone to share what they’re
grateful for.

Gratitude scavenger hunt

-Explore kid friendly areas of Cedar Rapids in teams of two and make
sure each team has a camera or camera phone. Give everyone a list of photos to hunt for
related to things that make them feel grateful. Examples: Find something that makes you happy.
Find something that makes someone in your family smile. Find something that you love to smell.
Find something that is your favorite color. Find something you are thankful for in nature. Find
something that you can turn into a gift for someone else. After your hunt, have everyone share
the treasures they captured.

Family Research Project

-Take advantage of family get togethers and turn your kids into investigative journalists! Have
them ask family members about what they’re grateful for and record their answers using your phone.

Flip it Around

-Take a recent negative experience (a bad grade, a lost game, a behavior that could
put you on Santa’s Naughty List) and create a positive narrative around it by focusing on
lessons learned.
Example: On our last visit to Cedar Rapids Pediatric Dentistry (Cedar Rapids’ best dentist
for kids - wink wink) we had a cavity that needed to be fixed. We learned that getting a filling
isn’t as scary as we thought, and that we need to spend more time brushing, flossing, and eating
healthy foods so we don't get any more cavities!
As you can tell, we want the kids of Cedar Rapids to be healthy physically and mentally.
Practicing gratitude leads to lots of smiles.