Make a Smile | Children’s Dental

Welcome to the Exhilarating World of Make A Smile!

Providing you and your growing little one with extraordinary dental care is always our mission at Make a Smile. We are passionate about teaching all our patients about the prevention of dental disease as they grow into an adult, which starts in our fun and interactive office environment designed just for kids. Our superb staff at Make a Smile Children’s dental is always delighted to see infants, children, and young adults in the pediatric dentist office.

Your child will surely love our fun waiting room, designed with kids in mind! The fun doesn’t end at our waiting room; we provide movies in treatment rooms, video games, and lots of games and toys! The fun loving staff and dentists here at Make a Smile go out of their way to work one on one with you and your child, fully explaining diagnoses and providing you with a strong sense of confidence in your child’s treatment options. Serving as a continual source of comfort for patients and their guardians, we encourage parents to join their children in treatment rooms if they wish to do so.

Make a Smile is welcoming to all cases: patients of a young age, children who require an extra-gentle hand with behavioral management, or children with special needs. Our offices are always up to date with the newest dentistry technology, entertainment, and special distraction techniques. We also offer a variety of sedation services, including in-office nitrous oxide, oral sedation, IV sedation, and hospital dentistry.

Your Child’s First Visit

You might come into our office more anxious than your child on his or her first visit, so try your best to stay relaxed! Our Make a Smile office is full of state-of-the-art technology and vastly different than the dental office you remember as a child. You will be delighted to see how comfortable you and your child will feel in our office. A positive outlook on dentistry starts with your child’s first dental visit, and aids in successfully creating a life-long preventative plan for your child. Your child’s first dental visit should be scheduled as soon as their first tooth erupts or before their first birthday. At your first visit, you can expect:

• A thorough review of your child’s medical and dental history
• Helpful tips on keeping your child’s teeth clean after nursing or
  bottle-feeding
• Instruction on proper brushing techniques
• A comprehensive, non-invasive exam to check soft tissue and
  tooth eruption
• A visit to the toy chest!

You may join your child during treatment at any time; however, we also welcome you to enjoy movies, toys, and video games with your other children in our reception area. If you do plan on accompanying your child during treatment, try not to bring other children to that appointment, as space is limited in offices.

You should continue bringing in your child every six months following their first appointment for evaluations and professional cleanings.

Children with Special Health Care Needs
Make a Smile strives to provide the best dental care for all children. Some patients often present dentists with unique challenges, such as those with significant medical, physical, or mental disabilities. At Make a Smile, however, our staff has received special training to be able to best treat special needs patients in our practice, resulting in the formation of lasting friendships with them and their caregivers. We assure a positive dental experience to all of our special needs patients, who are always attentively treated with gentleness and care in our pediatric dentist office.

We make efforts to significantly reduce the risk of preventative dental problems in our special needs patients by teaching them and their caregivers preventative oral health techniques. If you have any questions regarding oral health or an appointment, please feel free to contact us at our pediatric dentist office. Make A Smile also offers endodontic services, orthodontic services, and oral surgery.

What is Pediatric Dentistry?

Our experienced pediatric specialists team is carefully trained in working with infants, children, and adolescents, teaching them about the development of good dental habits that will carry them into their adult years. While initiating a trusting and confident relationship with your child, we can aim our efforts at preventing tooth decay, advising patients on how to make teeth stronger, and emphasizing the importance of developing ways to prevent cavities in the future.

Why Have a Pediatric Dentist?

With extensive knowledge of dental problems specific to children and adolescents, pediatric dentists are more than fit to care for your children and assure that you’re receiving the best information from a specialist in the field. Pediatric specialists are aware that they must treat children a little differently than adults, which is equally as important as the technical training. After years of working strictly with children, these dentists know that showing respect, compassion, and a gentle touch will always get the best results from our young patients.Pediatric dentists are also trained in Child Physiology, providing them with the ability to approach the needs of children from a different perspective than a general dentist. This is especially important in working with maturing children, whose focus turns more towards self-image as they age. A lot of problems that can progress as your child gets older can be resolved by our early detection techniques, helping to improve your child’s smile.

Pediatric Dental Treatments

Sealants

Aside from having good oral hygiene, sealants are placed on chewing surfaces of the back teeth to prevent tooth decay. A sealant is a thin coating material that flows into the grooves of the chewing surface on a molar. Sealants make it very easy to keep molars clean and to avoid food from getting stuck in the grooves causing cavities.

Dental Radiographs or X-Rays

Our office is equipped with digital radiography, with the images almost instantly appearing on our computer screen!

Diagnodent

Not all cavities are easy to reach. Fortunately, we use Diagnodent, a light that is used to detect bacteria and gauge the density of the tooth. This non-invasive technology offers early detection of cavities.

Dental Filling

In order to treat a cavity, filling or restorative material is chosen based on the tooth which needs to be restored. Tooth decay eats holes in the substance of the tooth, called “dentin,” creating that most familiar of dental bothers: the cavity. At Make a Smile, we do not fill cavities with amalgam or silver fillings; we proudly use only composite, white fillings. Fillings are an easy way to prevent further decay and future problems.

Flouride

Fluoride helps re-mineralize weak enamel, which is important for healthy teeth. Our office or your pediatrician can prescribe fluoride supplements in tablet or drop form as needed. Topical fluoride is externally applied directly to the teeth and is found in mouthwash and toothpaste.

Pulpotomy/Stainless Steel Crown

If a cavity goes untreated and is not filled, decay passes through the dentin and enters the pulp, the soft, innermost part of a tooth containing nerves and blood vessels. For this we perform a pulpotomy. The decay and pulp tissue are removed, the pulp chamber is filled with a special material and a stainless steel crown is cemented over the entire tooth to prevent breakage.

Root Canal

When a cavity at the pulp level is left untreated, the decay spreads into the root canals where nerves and blood vessels connect to the tooth. At this point the only procedure that can save the tooth is a root canal. The decay and tissue of the root canals are removed and, as in a pulpotomy, replaced with a special material.

Extraction and Space Maintainer

If the decay passes through the roots, it forms an infection at the base of the tooth, at this point the tooth must be “extracted,” or removed. When a back tooth is removed, the remaining teeth push closer together, leaving little room for the new permanent tooth. To prevent the new tooth from growing in crooked, a space maintainer is used. This is placed in the space left by the extracted tooth, almost like a place holder, saving room for the new permanent tooth to grow in properly.

What Parents Should Know

Five Steps to a Healthy Smile

• Brush twice a day
• Floss once a day
• Eat healthy
• Get a check-up every 6 months or as needed
• Baby Teeth Cleaning

Healthy baby teeth, although eventually replaced, are a pivotal step in the development and growth of a child’s permanent teeth. An important first step towards a healthy child’s mouth, a child’s first tooth may erupt as early as in a few months. It is crucial to clean your baby’s gums and newly erupted teeth after meals, bottles, and medicine use, using a soft washcloth. Please replace toothbrushes every three months and check with your dentist about when and what toothpastes are appropriate for your child prior to use.