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First word, first step, first day of school—these firsts are milestones every parent celebrates. And one of the earliest and most precious milestones is your baby’s first real smile! 

Keep that smile beaming and healthy from infancy to young adulthood with the help of dental milestones. These breakthrough events mark significant stages in oral development, and are a great guide to understanding, protecting, and supporting your child’s path to adult oral health.

• First Tooth

The first tooth often arrives around the age of six months. And this is the time to start cavity prevention, with twice daily gentle brushing with a soft-bristled, child-sized toothbrush. Talk to Drs. Paul Pasternack, Chara Pasternack, and Christine Biondi or your child's pediatrician to learn how and when to brush and how much and what kind of toothpaste to use.

By the age of three, toddlers typically have all of their 20 baby teeth, and these little teeth are essential to children’s health. They help kids chew and eat, assist speech development and pronunciation, and act as placeholders so adult teeth can erupt in the proper place. Keep your child’s baby teeth their healthiest by partnering with the dental team at Pasternack Pediatric Dental in Vorhees.

• First Visit to the Dentist

Once that first tooth has come in, or around age one, it’s time to bring your little one to the dentist for a first visit. Your pediatric dentist will do a careful exam to see if your child’s teeth and jaws are developing as they should, check the health of the teeth, and answer your questions about brushing, flossing, toothpaste, teething, pacifiers, thumb-sucking, or any other concerns. 

Why choose a pediatric dentist? Your pediatric dental team are experts at creating a “dental home,” a welcoming place which provides comforting continuity and specialized, child-oriented preventative care and treatment from infancy through the teen years.

• First Lost Tooth/First Permanent Tooth

Around age six, most children start to lose baby teeth, typically in the order in which they arrived. Losing a baby tooth is a big step for children, and might be a bit scary. You can celebrate this milestone with a visit from the Tooth Fairy, or a certificate, or a new toothbrush in your child’s favorite color. 

And as the permanent teeth come in, continue to encourage twice daily brushing and flossing, and consider proactive treatment with dental sealants. Even when children have learned to brush properly, and brush twice each day, it can be hard for kids to remove all the plaque and food particles from the grooved chewing surfaces on top of molars. That’s why molars are much more vulnerable to decay than any other teeth. 

Around the time your child’s first permanent molars erupt, the team at Pasternack Pediatric Dental might suggest sealants. Sealants protect the chewing surfaces of the molars from food particle and plaque buildup. This safe and invisible protective coating, usually a plastic resin, is applied in the office and typically lasts from three to five years. 

• First Orthodontic Visit

Pediatric dentists and orthodontists recommend an orthodontic examination by age seven (or earlier, if you have any concerns). At this point, children have a mix of primary and permanent teeth, allowing an orthodontist to assess tooth spacing and alignment and the way the jaws fit together. 

Your orthodontist might find no issues with your child’s teeth or bite. Or, perhaps, follow-up appointments might be scheduled to determine if and when future treatment is advisable. Sometimes, because some problems can be treated more easily when your child is young, early intervention with a fixed or removeable appliance is recommended right away. 

Having an orthodontic plan in place helps ensure that children benefit from the most effective and timely treatment at any stage of their development.

• Orthodontic Treatment

Orthodontic treatment commonly begins in early adolescence (ten to 14) when most or all of the permanent teeth have erupted. The facial and jaw bones are still growing in preteens and young teens, which makes it easier to reposition teeth and guide jaw alignment.

More treatment options are available than ever before—and today’s braces, clear aligners, smaller and more comfortable appliances, and even 3D technology make treating malocclusions and misalignments more efficient than ever before.

A healthy bite and properly aligned teeth are a foundation of lasting oral health. Orthodontic treatment helps prevent decay, gum disease, jaw pain, and even early tooth loss. And, of course, the value of your child’s increased self-confidence is impossible to overestimate!

• Wisdom Teeth

Wisdom teeth, or third molars, generally start to erupt in the late teens or early twenties and often have a harmful effect on oral health.

Erupting or impacted wisdom teeth can push neighboring teeth out of position, damage adjacent tooth roots, and cause inflammation and infection in gum and bone around the wisdom tooth. For these reasons, preventative extraction is often recommended. 

If your teen shows any symptoms of erupting or impacted wisdom teeth—irritated, swollen, or bleeding gums, bad breath, jaw pain or swelling—a visit to the dentist is in order.

As parents, you do your best to guide your child’s journey from infancy to healthy adulthood. Each dental milestone marks a new stage in your child’s oral health journey, and new ways for you to encourage and protect that oral health. Use these milestones to set your child up for a lifetime of good dental habits—and a lifetime of healthy smiles!

Halitosis is the scientific name for bad breath. It is one of the most common oral concerns, and it affects a large percentage of the population, including children. Having bad breath can be embarrassing and a nuisance. When considering what to do about halitosis, the team at Pasternack Pediatric Dental highlights that you need to focus on the cause, rather than just masking the problem.

Children commonly have bad breath because of an upper respiratory infection. This includes a common cold, postnasal drip, or allergies. When this is the case, treatment may be complicated if one or more of these issues is chronic.

Another cause of halitosis in children is a condition with their teeth or gums. Just as in adults, gum disease has a distinctive malodor. The quality of brushing and flossing in children directly influences the presence of gum disease. If there is a large untreated cavity, there will be a strong smell causing bad breath. Both of these issues need professional attention, including a visit to the dentist.

Tonsillitis can also cause halitosis in children. It happens because of a constricted airway, resulting in mouth breathing. Mouth breathing is a concern because of how much it dries the tissue in the mouth. This makes any bacterial infection in the mouth worse and causes an increased potency within the bacteria in the mouth.

Treatment of halitosis is as varied as the causes listed above. Beware of ingredients in products that mask bad breath. Sucking on a mint on a regular basis will cause more harm than good because of potential decay. Chew sugarless gum and mints.

If you have any other questions, feel free to call us at Pasternack Pediatric Dental or ask Drs. Paul Pasternack, Chara Pasternack, and Christine Biondi during your next appointment!

October’s here! A month when we celebrate the beauty of fall, the taste of pumpkin spice, the fun of Halloween in Vorhees, and the healthy smiles which orthodontic treatment makes possible!

Because October is Orthodontic Health Month, and it’s a great time to talk about how orthodontic treatment creates not just beautiful smiles, but healthy ones. 

Straight, evenly spaced teeth are the visible benefit of treatment, but there are many health benefits which might not be quite as noticeable. Orthodontic treatment can:

• Help Your Child Prevent Cavities and Gum Disease 

When teeth are crowded or crooked, it’s hard for a toothbrush and floss to reach all of the plaque which builds up on and between the teeth. The bacteria in plaque create acids which are strong enough to dissolve tooth enamel. And a very small hole in the enamel surface can grow until it becomes a cavity. 

Plaque and bacteria also irritate the gums. When children can’t remove plaque completely, their gums are at risk for gingivitis. This early stage of gum disease causes redness, tenderness, swelling, and bleeding. Left untreated, gingivitis can develop into more serious gum disease. 

And, over time, plaque hardens and becomes tartar, which needs to be removed professionally at Pasternack Pediatric Dental.

When children’s teeth are straight and evenly spaced, brushing and flossing are both easier and more effective, helping them keep their teeth and gums healthy and plaque-free.

• Create a Better Bite

For a healthy bite, the teeth and jaws need to align correctly. The top teeth should slightly overlap the lower teeth, and the ridges of the upper molars should fit smoothly with the grooves of the lower molars. 

Malocclusions, or bad bites, can come in many forms, including overbites, underbites, open bites, cross bites, and overjets. A bad bite is bad for your child’s dental health. Malocclusions can cause tooth grinding, worn enamel, and even cracked teeth. 

And bad bites don’t just affect the teeth. When teeth and jaws don’t align properly, we might suffer from problems such as headaches, jaw pain, indigestion, and sleep apnea. 

Orthodontic treatment creates a healthy, symmetrical, and pain-free bite.

• Improve Your Child’s Self-Confidence

We can’t forget the invisible health benefits of orthodontic treatment! Your orthodontist can help your child achieve straighter teeth, a bite which fits together properly, and, when malocclusions affect jaw symmetry, a more balanced facial profile. 

Your child’s smile is a gift shared with the world. But when children hesitate to smile because they are self-conscious about their teeth or bites, orthodontic treatment can make a world of difference.

Modern orthodontic treatment is more effective and takes less time to complete than ever before. And orthodontics offers patients more benefits than ever before: 

• New types of braces are less noticeable and more comfortable than older styles. Smaller brackets, brackets which blend with tooth enamel, clear aligners, and lingual braces provide a variety of treatment options.
• Early orthodontic treatment can guide jaw growth in younger children. 
• Appliances can help with tooth and jaw alignment in older children.
• If necessary, for more serious malocclusions, an orthodontist can coordinate treatment with an oral surgeon.

Drs. Paul Pasternack, Chara Pasternack, and Christine Biondi and the team at Pasternack Pediatric Dental recommend a child’s first visit with an orthodontist around the age of seven. If you’ve been considering orthodontic treatment for your child, October—or any month!—is a great time to schedule a visit with an orthodontist. Discover what your orthodontist can do to help make your child’s smile a beautiful and a healthy one.

“But they are only baby teeth; won’t they just fall out?” Our team at Pasternack Pediatric Dental has had these questions asked many times from parents over the years. Primary teeth, or “baby teeth,” will indeed come out eventually, to be replaced by permanent teeth as the child grows and develops. These teeth serve a great purpose as the child continues to develop and require specific care.

Because baby teeth are temporary, some parents are unenthusiastic about fixing cavities in them. This may be due to the cost or having to force a child undergo the process—especially having to receive an injection. But if a cavity is diagnosed early enough, an injection can often be avoided. More important, failure to fill cavities in primary teeth when they are small and manageable can have lasting consequences in cost and health concerns. Serious illnesses in children have been diagnosed which began as a cavity.

Primary teeth act as a guide for permanent teeth. When decay reaches the nerve and blood supply of a tooth, this can cause an abscess. Severe pain and swelling may result. At that point, the only treatment options are either to remove the tooth or to perform a procedure similar to a baby root canal. When a primary tooth is lost prematurely—to decay or a painful abscess—the adjacent teeth will often shift and block the eruption of a permanent tooth. Braces or spacers become necessary to avoid crowding or impaction of the permanent tooth.

There is nothing more heartbreaking for Drs. Paul Pasternack, Chara Pasternack, and Christine Biondi than to have to treat a child experiencing pain and fear. To all the parents of my little patients our team strongly recommend filling a small cavity and not waiting until it becomes a larger problem such as those described above.

Prevention is the key to a healthy mouth for our smallest patients. Parents should allow the child to brush his or her teeth using a pea-sized amount of fluoride toothpaste and then take a turn to ensure the plaque gets removed from all surfaces: cheek side, tongue side, and chewing edges of all the teeth.