Today's Dental News

Even though most people are aware that good oral health is essential for the overall health of mother and child, misunderstandings about the safety of dental care during pregnancy may cause pregnant women to avoid seeing their dentist. The fact is that dentists can create a treatment plan that is safe, effective, and essential for combating the adverse effects of oral disease during pregnancy.

During the course of pregnancy, a woman’s oral health can undergo significant changes. According to an article published in the November/December 2010 issue of General Dentistry, the peer-reviewed clinical journal of the Academy of General Dentistry (AGD), pregnant women can experience gingivitis, pregnancy tumors, and mild to severe gingival enlargement.

Read more: Expecting? Don’t Neglect Your Teeth

Because children and adolescents are particularly vulnerable to radiation, doctors three years ago mounted a national campaign to protect them by reducing diagnostic radiation to only those levels seen as absolutely necessary.

It is a message that has resonated in many clinics and hospitals. Yet there is one busy place where it has not: the dental office.

Not only do most dentists continue to use outmoded X-ray film requiring higher amounts of radiation, but orthodontists and other specialists are embracing a new scanning device that emits significantly more radiation than conventional methods, an examination by The New York Times has found.

Read more: Radiation Worries for Children in Dentists’ Chairs

KSS Productions is currently in predevelopment of Extreme Faces, Miracle Cases, a first-of-its-kind television series that will highlight the connection of recent studies that irrefutably proves the connection of oral hygiene and its direct correlation to overall health and systemic diseases. The series will bring help to countless people by taking on real-life extreme cases and helping those in dire need through the selfless and compassionate assistance of the dental and medical communities combined.

Read more: Breakthrough TV Series to Show Dental and Medical Systemic Connection

The North Carolina Head Start-State Collaboration Office and the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry (AAPD) announced the launch of the Head Start Dental Home Initiative to improve oral health for North Carolina children.

The program links 22,000 children from birth to age 5 in the state’s Head Start and Early Head Start programs to local dentists who will provide them with a “dental home” that offers comprehensive, ongoing oral healthcare delivered in a family-centered way. It will also equip parents, caregivers and Head Start staff with the latest information on the prevention of tooth decay.

Read more: North Carolina Launches Head Start Dental Home Initiative