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As hard as it may seem to believe, kids are still taking up smoking. In fact, your Pediatric Dentist will tell you that tweens and teens are puffing cigarettes and chewing smokeless tobacco products more than ever. Hookah pipes are becoming increasingly popular with teenagers and are just as dangerous as other tobacco products.

Although smoking is glamorized thanks to the tobacco industry, you still have more influence on your kids than the celebrities that smoke in the movies or on television.

If you suspect that your kids have started to smoke, sit down and have a heart to heart talk. Tell them how smoking can affect their bodies, including their teeth and gums. Explain to your sons and daughters that you do not want them to smoke. Consistent messages will get your point across making smoking less likely.

It’s never too early to talk to your kids about the dangers of smoking and smokeless tobacco products. Not only does smoking affect your children’s health, but it can also cause serious issues to their teeth and gums. Gum disease, horrible staining, and receding gums are just a few of the problems that can occur with smoking. Start giving your children powerful messages about the dangers of smoking as early as five years old. Those early warnings may prevent them from taking up the habit, which can begin as early as 10 or 11 years old. Kids that have started before the teen years will become addicted to smoking or smokeless tobacco products by the time they reach the tender age of 14.

If you smoke, kick the habit. According to NBC News, parents who smoke or use smokeless tobacco or more likely to produce children who develop the habit at an early age. Let your kids know how difficult it is to stop smoking and how much you wish you had never started.

Keep a smoke free policy in your home and if you have friends or family members who indulge, make sure that it is never allowed inside or near your children.

Know your kids friends and find out if they smoke. Peer pressure can result in your son or daughter taking their first puff leading to a dangerous addiction.

If you catch your kids smoking, avoid ultimatums, threats, and punishment. Your Pediatric Dentist advises that you ask your son or daughter what the attraction to smoking is and what can be done to help kick the habit.

Point out to your kids that the tobacco industry spends billions of dollars in order to make their products appealing. Kids, especially teens that smoke may become angry helping to motivate them into quitting all together.

If you would like more information regarding smoking and oral health, schedule an appointment with your Dentist who may be able to help you and your kids stop smoking.

Your kids can get tooth decay. Mild tooth decay may need to be filled with severe decay requiring a root canal, or a crown. It is imperative that you schedule a dental appointment with your Kids Dentist in Chicago when the first tooth erupts, usually at around six months.

Fillings are used to repair decayed or broken tooth. Common materials used include alloy, metal, porcelain, plastic, or a combination of materials. If you have toddler that has a cavity in a front tooth, your dentist will use a tooth colored resin.

Root canals are not just for adults. According to Colgate, kids may require a root canal if the cavity is too big and a filling isn’t enough to repair the damage. Root canal therapy is safe and effective, and may be necessary, even in baby teeth.

Your dentist explains that primary teeth are lost between six and twelve years of age, but if there is an infection or trauma, a root canal may be required.

Baby teeth function just like adult teeth. Missing teeth can cause problems regardless of how old your child is and can affect eating and talking.

Primary teeth serve as a guide when it comes to the proper placement of permanent teeth. If baby teeth are missing and lost before their time, primary teeth could become crowded or crooked. Without adequate space, adult teeth may be tilted or cause bite problems, which could lead to orthodontic treatment once your son or daughter gets older.

Because the inside of the tooth, or the pulp, is loaded with nerves and blood vessels problems could develop including pain and sensitivity. If the pulp is dying or diseased, root canal therapy may be needed before infection or a dangerous abscess develops.

Your Pediatric Dentist may use indirect pulp therapy by applying an antibiotic to the decay before sealing the damaged tooth. A pulpotomy may also be used to remove the damaged pulp while stabilizing the healthy portion of the pulp. Also called a partial root canal this treatment has been proven successful in many cases.

Of course, the only way to determine if your son or daughter requires a filling or a root canal is to schedule an appointment with your Pediatric Dentist.

Baby bottle tooth decay, commonly known as nursing bottle syndrome, and nursing carries, happens when your child’s teeth are constantly in contact with beverages loaded with sugar. Formula, milk, fruit juice, and even fruit juice that you have diluted with water, can cause early childhood carries. Even if you breastfeed, your baby could still be susceptible to baby bottle tooth decay. Once any of these liquids begin to break down inside your child’s mouth, bacteria begins to feed on the sugars causing cavities and dental caries.

If your kids love to drink sugary beverages, it is imperative that you schedule an appointment with your pediatric dentist as baby bottle tooth decay can make it tough to eat and can cause pain.

Baby teeth act as space savers for your children’s adult teeth. Unfortunately if your kids baby teeth are damaged it could result in improper positioning. This could also result in crooked permanent teeth or overcrowding. If your kid’s teeth are decayed, an abscess could occur spreading the infection to other parts of the body.

According to Medicine Net, there are some things that you can do to help prevent nursing caries.

Substitute juices, milk and sugary liquids with water. If your child must have a watered down juice drink, follow with a baby bottle filled with water.

If your kids use pacifiers, never dip them in sugary liquids, honey, fruit juice, or plain sugar.

When you put your child down for bedtime or naptime, resist the urge to fill his or her baby bottle with sugary liquids or milk. Even watered down juice can increase the risk of tooth decay. Again, water is the best and will keep your kids hydrated while sleeping.

Because human breast milk can also cause dental caries, never allow your child to nurse while sleeping. Fill the bottle with water or give your child a pacifier.

Resist the urge to add sugar to your finicky eater’s food. Doing so will cause the bacteria in your child’s mouth to feed on the sugar eventually causing tooth decay.

Your dentist recommends that you wipe your baby’s mouth with a wet cloth even if your child does not have teeth. After each feeding, wipe the gums and any teeth that have erupted as this can help remove sugars and plaque.

Be sure and ask your pediatric dentist about fluoride. Too much can cause spots and permanent damage to your kids teeth. Not enough will cause tooth decay. If your water is not fluoridated your dentist may recommend fluoride treatments.

Lastly, teach your kids to use a sippy cup by the time they reach the age of one. Sippy cups help reduce sugar exposure. Have your son or daughter drink water, as sugary drinks, including milk, will cause tooth decay.

For more information regarding baby bottle tooth decay, schedule an appointment with your pediatric dentist who can help your kids keep their teeth for the rest of their lives.

All people are susceptible to tooth decay, but infants, toddlers, adolescents, teens and tweens can be prone to cavities. In fact, the Center for Disease Control estimates that as many as 19 percent of children between two and nineteen live with cavities that are left untreated.

Children are twice as likely to get cavities because they do not brush and floss as they should. Dental caries, which can be passed from one to another, are actually communicable diseases that one family member can give to another because of cup and utensil sharing.

According to a Pediatric Dentist, there are a number of factors that could be contributing to your children’s tooth decay. Cavities form thanks to bacteria, sugars, and starches that accumulate on the teeth and gums. This dangerous mix creates acids that will deplete calcium, which is needed to keep your tooth enamel strong. The mouth germ, technically called mutans streptococcus is a germ causes plaque. Plaque coats your teeth with even more acid that adds to the tooth decay that has already started to form. Twenty seconds is all it takes for the bacteria to covert to acid after a sugary snack has been enjoyed. This happens several times during a meal. How you eat is almost as important as what you eat. Sucking on a hard candy all day is actually more detrimental than eating an entire bag of candy for lunch.

If you have been reading the Chicago Kids Dentist blog you will know how damaging sugar is to your kids teeth, but so are food items that most consider healthy. Fruit juice is highly acidic as is certain types of fish and bread. Carbonated drinks can also hurt teeth.

Of course, your kids don’t have to give these treats up completely. Ask your Pediatric Dentist about snacks that help produce saliva to wash away some of the dangerous acids. Keep snacking before bed to a minimum, and never give your son or daughter anything acidic before bedtime. Try giving your kids cheese following an acidic meal as it helps to neutralize the acids.

Before brushing, teach your kids to rinse after a meal. Wait approximately thirty minutes and then have them brush, as the acid works quickly making the enamel on your teeth more vulnerable if you or your kids brush immediately after eating.

These days, dentists understand how genetics affect teeth and gums. Just as your genes determine the color of your eyes, height and hair color, genes also affect teeth and gums right down to the hardness of the enamel. This explains why people who have impeccable oral hygiene habits find themselves sitting in the dentist’s chair more often than they would like.

If you would like more information on keeping your kids teeth healthy through adulthood, contact a Pediatric Dentist in your area who can help your kids keep their teeth well into the senior years.