While contact sports are the obvious source of most dental injuries and accidents, these can also commonly occur as a result of roller blading, skateboarding, bike-riding and scootering.
You can bet your life that just as if your child’s (very expensive) braces have come off or their adult front teeth have come through, they’ll get a ball in the face and those beautiful pearly whites will be in trouble. Here’s what you need to know about dental injuries and accidents.
Injuries can include:
- Loss of teeth
- Soft tissue damage to the gums or lips
- Jaw fracture
- Tooth fractures
If a permanent tooth is knocked out:
- Get your child to the nearest dentist or hospital with the tooth/teeth in milk or saline.
If you’re unable to get the child to a dentist within one hour:
- Hold the tooth by the crown (which is the bottom of the tooth).
- Rinse the tooth, if dirty, in milk or saline.
- Don’t scrub or touch the root of tooth.
- Replace the tooth in the socket.
- Make sure it goes in the right way – root first.
- Make sure that the tooth is not back to front. You can check this against the next tooth or someone else’s tooth.
- Take your child to a dentist or hospital straight away so they can splint the tooth in place.
Mouthguards:
If your child plays any type of contact sport, he should wear a professionally fitted mouthguard – even during training. Most mouth injuries (including loss of a tooth) due to sport are preventable if a mouthguard is worn.
This article was written by Ella Walsh for Kidspot. Sources include The Children’s Hospital at Westmead and Dental Health Services Victoria
