Taking your child to the dentist no longer needs to be an appointment you dread. With the latest pediatric dental technology, your dentist can deliver advanced care without pain, anxiety, or bleeding. Here are a few top technologies to discover.
Silver diamine fluoride is a mixture of silver and fluoride painted over your child’s teeth that helps stop cavities and decay without major procedures or invasive techniques. SDF is ideal for children who have a lot of or hard-to-treat cavities, fear of or trouble managing behavior during treatments, or no access to dental care.
Advanced 3D printing, digital design, and planning make it easier to create highly custom appliances that match your child’s teeth and appearance exactly. These appliances might be orthodontic or functional, like palate expanders or bite plates.
Lasers are a precise tool in pediatric dentistry and allow your dentist to treat cavities without anesthesia, pain, injury, or bleeding. The carbon dioxide laser removes decay and cavities, cuts through tooth pulp and bone to clean out and prep for fillings, and shapes gums.
The laser also seals blood vessels to prevent bleeding and allows your dentist to carry out dental treatments without damaging surrounding tissues. This advanced dental care for kids can also release tongue ties, take a tissue sample for testing, or treat gum disease.
Unlike older, traditional X-ray scans, digital X-rays do not use film. Instead, these newer technologies use digital sensors to capture X-ray information and send it to a computer to convert it to an image.
Digital X-rays expose your child to 80% to 90% less radiation than traditional X-rays, making them a safer option, and can be seen within minutes. In addition, since they’re not on physical film, images are easily shared via computers, so multiple dentists or team members can view them at the same time, speeding up review and treatment planning.
As it sounds, an intraoral camera is a camera that goes inside the mouth. Your dentist may use this tool to take videos or pictures of your child’s teeth, inspect areas closely, or show you problem areas to focus on.
Some of these devices also have other features, like LED lights for curing materials used in fillings and scanning features to create 3D models of the mouth and teeth for treatment planning.
Cone beam imaging is another advanced type of scan that uses CT technology. The X-rays in this scan form a cone-shaped beam, allowing your dentist to get precise, 3D images of a small area. These 3D images help your dentist better diagnose conditions and plan exact treatments with less invasive procedures.
Air abrasion removes plaque, decay, and bacteria from your child’s mouth using tiny particles of sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) or other materials. These particles pass through compressed air in a pinpoint stream against the tooth and gums.
The force helps carefully remove debris for detailed cleaning and treatment without drills or scalers. These techniques might be especially helpful for kids afraid of dental tools or sounds or who struggle with the feel of the scaler scraping plaque from teeth.
Sedation options help your child stay comfortable and pain- or anxiety-free during dental treatments. Sedation dentistry happens in clinics and may be light sedation like nitrous oxide (laughing gas) or moderate sedation with medication. These put your child to sleep so they don’t remember the procedure, making it a stress-free way to get dental treatment.
Hines Little Smiles offers Columbus pediatric treatments and advanced dental care for kids in New Albany. We're ready for your kids with the latest dental technology, a fun experience, and precision care. Book an appointment to learn more.
Call 614-475-5439 or request an appointment online to set up your first visit. We’ll be in touch soon.
