Children's Dentistry in Fairfield
We love welcoming children to our Fairfield, VIC dental clinics.
Regular check-ups keep your child's smile healthy, reduce their risk for orthodontic concerns later on, and allow you to ask questions about your child's oral development.
During your child's check-up, our dentists will assess their:
Tooth Development and Hygiene
How are your child's dental health and oral hygiene? We will evaluate the health of each tooth and screen for problems such as cavities, infections or abscesses. Early intervention can save their smile. We also use digital x-rays to assess the development of unerupted teeth. Erupted teeth are inspected visually to ensure that everything is developing as it should.
Early Intervention
As teeth erupt and fall out, they do so in a set order. Premature tooth loss can impact the eruption of developing teeth underneath. This can, in turn, lead to occlusal (bite) complications and the need for orthodontic therapy in the future. With proper oversight, changes in eruption patterns can be monitored to promote healthy teeth eruption, regardless of whether something happens out of order.
We closely monitor your child's oral development and recommend a proper assessment around age eight. This assessment is performed during routine maintenance visits and allows your child's dentist in Fairfield to explore and potentially correct misalignment issues, including overbite and underbite. The dentist will also be on the lookout for a broad smile.
Early intervention, including space maintainers and expanders, can mean less time in braces and can even lower your child's risks for extraction due to overcrowding.
Teeth Fissures and Dental Sealants
Pit and fissure sealants help your child avoid tooth decay by blocking out bacteria that are hard to remove from deep grooves and pits. Children have particularly deep grooves in their teeth before they start to wear down due to ageing. We typically recommend placing sealants on the permanent back molars soon after they erupt as a preventive measure.
Having a sealant placed is very simple. No local anaesthetic or drilling are needed. Instead, the tooth is isolated and thoroughly dried off. Then a conditioner is placed on it for several seconds, which we then rinse away and dry off the tooth again. Finally, we brush the sealant material onto the grooves and pits of the teeth with a small applicator. Because it is flowable, it will seep into the grooves of the teeth. Then sealants are hardened with a bright light. The entire dental sealant process takes only a couple of minutes per tooth to complete.
Sealants are not permanent, like fillings, so that they can be pulled off with sticky foods. Avoiding things like taffy or caramel can help the sealants last several years. Children with sealants on their permanent molars are much less likely to suffer from common childhood cavities on those teeth.
Child Oral Development – Speech Patterns and Habits
Does your child suck their thumb? Do certain oral anomalies impact the speech patterns of your child? Certain types of oral habits can interfere with the development of your child's smile, and some speech habit corrections as simple as a tight piece of skin under the tongue or next to the lip. If necessary, we can use a soft tissue laser to correct this and help improve their speech.
Contact Our Family-Friendly Dental Clinic in Fairfield
Give Sparkle Dental Care a call at our Fairfield dental clinic to arrange an appointment for yourself or your children. We warmly welcome new patients.
Early childhood dental visits are essential for helping your child develop a positive experience with dental visits. Finding a kids’ dentist in Fairfield, VIC will give you an opportunity to create a solid foundation for a lifelong healthy smile.
