Dental Health and Dental Treatment During Pregnancy: Part 1
Posted by jshnall on February 18th, 2012
Dental Health and Dental Treatment During Pregnancy – Part 1
By Dr. Jeff Shnall BSc, DDS
Toronto, Canada
Posted Feb 2012
Pregnancy is an exciting time in a women’s life, however many women are apprehensive regarding dental treatment while they are pregnant.
In today’s Dental Health Podcast we will begin our discussion of dental treatment and dental health for the pregnant patient.
I wanted to prepare a guide for expectant mothers, to address questions they have on how best to care for their teeth during pregnancy, what dental procedures are safe for both mother to be and their developing baby, and how they can ensure their baby’s teeth develop properly, months before their baby is even born.
So here is the guide, in audio format. The text of this podcast is available on my website www.BeachDentistry.com and in the show notes for this episode.
Everything I tell you today is based on the latest research and medical opinion found in some excellent articles available online, from reliable sources.
I would also like to add that I was surprised by the lack of information on this topic at our local big box bookstore. They only had a few books on pregnancy, and each of those books only devoted a few paragraphs to dentistry and the pregnant patient.
If you only have time to check one online source I recommend a great article entitled: Oral Health During Pregnancy and Early Childhood: Evidence –Based Guidelines for Health Professionals. This article is written for dentists, physicians and other healthcare workers, and is available for free at: www.cdafoundation.org/library/docs/poh_guidelines.pdf
The article was written by a group of U.S. state and national medical, dental and public health experts, in 2010. They reviewed all of the current research in the area of dental care and dental health for the pregnant patient and developed a set of guidelines for dentists to follow. Most importantly, their findings and recommendations are fully endorsed by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, who oversaw the entire project.
Here are the topics covered in the first part of this series on pregnancy we cover today:
1. What are the dental health changes a woman may notice during pregnancy? We discuss
· pregnancy gingivitis,
· pregnancy tumours (don’tpanic…it’s a harmless lump that can develop in the gums during pregnancy)
· whether gum disease actually can can low birth weight babies or premature birth
· morning sickness and your teeth
· dygeusia dis-gew-zee-ə (a temporary change in the sense of taste during pregnancy and the pickled pepper solution)
2. How dental treatment is modified to keep both expectant mother and her developing baby safe.
· The Oral Health Referral Form which should be filled out by all MD’s for their pregnant patients
· The importance of maintaining good dental health during pregnancy
· Are there procedures that should be delayed until after pregnancy
· Are x-rays safe to take during pregnancy?
If you would have any comments or suggestions for future podcasts, or if you would like to see me for an appointment I can be reached at DentalHealthpodast@gmail.com or you can call us at 416-691-2886. .
For the full text of this article please click here.
Thanks for listening and bye for now.
Emma Wallace Having a baby
Sound effects
used in this episode were provide by the freesound project: http://www.freesound.org/:
In order of appearance:
1. Fetal heart beat n8daly
2. Car zooming by rfhache
3. Trombone music by Benboncan
4. Surprised crowd by FreqMan
A special thanks to Music Alley http://www.musicalley.com/ And to Emma Wallace for the use of her beautiful song “Lullaby for Baby.”
Articles used to prepare this podcast episode:
1. Dental Care During Pregnancy; The Cleveland Clinic © 1995-2011
file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Dell/Desktop/Preg.podcast/cleveland.clinic.dental.htm
2. Oral Health Care During Pregnancy
Recommendations for Oral Health Professionals. Jayanth Kumar, D.D.S., M.P.H.; Renee Samelson, M.D., M.P.H. New york State Dental Journal, 2009, 75(6).
3. Oral health Care for the Pregnant Patient, Dr. James Giglio, Journal of the Canadian dental Association. Feb. 2009, Vol. 75, No.1
4. Drug Therapy in the Pregnant Dental Patient, Dr. Doreen Mattsui MD, FRCPC, Associate Professor, Department of Paediatrics, Children’s Hospital of Western Ontario, May, 2010.
5. Oral health During Pregnancy and Childhood: Evidence-Based Guidelines for Health Professionals, Feb 2010. California Dental Association and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
Standard Podcasts [28:11m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download | Embeddable Player | Hits (93)Posted in health, medicine, nutrition, dentistry, wellness | Comments (0) » |










