Hamlin Celebrates Children's Dental Health Month and Offers Advice

Hamlin Dental, a dentist in North Hollywood and participating dental practice following the guidelines set by the American Dental Association, celebrates Children's Dental Health Month this February! We often know that it's important for children to have their regular doctor visits for vaccinations and so forth, but oral health is another very important piece of the health puzzle. Why? Because teaching children the importance of twice-daily brushing instills good habits for the rest of their lives. By teaching children to brush for 2 minutes per brushing session, you can help them with an early start in keeping their teeth healthy and beautiful. 

Teach your children early about good oral hygiene habits, such as twice-daily brushing, and remember to schedule regular dental visits so they'll have a lifetime of healthy teeth and gums.

Children can be taken to the dentist for their first checkup as soon as their teeth start to erupt, or no later than their first birthday, according to the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry. By offering a child-friendly dental office, Hamlin Dental Group caters to children's specific oral health needs.

Here are some quick tips for healthy teeth specific to children:
1. Once a child's first teeth appear, start brushing the teeth twice a day with fluoridated toothpaste and a soft, age-appropriate size toothbrush. Only a smear of toothpaste is needed for children younger than age 2.
2. Children between the ages of 2-5 should have a pea-sized amount of toothpaste and should be supervised while they first learn to brush on their own, as young children do not yet have the ability to brush their own teeth effectively. Remember to teach your child to spit out the toothpaste and not swallow it, and teach them to brush for 2 minutes per brushing session, both in the morning and before bedtime.

If you're in need of a child-friendly dentist in Van Nuys, North Hollywood or Northridge, contact Hamlin Dental Group today. We are proud to help keep your child's smile healthy and beautiful!

A Social Issue with Teeth

Yesterday's "Dear Prudence" advice column over at Slate led off with a dilemma that couldn't help but attract our attention here at Hamlin Dental Group. It's certainly an issue any highly experienced dentist in Van Nuys, or most other parts of the Greater L.A. area would have dealt with fairly often...but which might be fairly rare for the rest of us.

The woman writing in has a new beau who, as always seems to be case with these kind of advice columns, is just about perfect in every way but one: He's missing a number of teeth in the front of his mouth. Not surprisingly, his new girlfriend is nervous about introducing him to her family.

Of course, the first instinct of a dentist in North Hollywood or anywhere else is to point out that missing teeth of this type have potentially serious health consequences, social issues aside. At the same time, it's intriguing to consider just why having a full set of front teeth really is a sort of price of social admission for adults.

As advice columnist Emily Yoffe points out, you've got to be impressed by the "personality chops" of a guy who could overcome such an issue in a romance, because the lack of prominent front teeth -- either natural, bridgework, or prosthetic -- is so rare in middle-class America. It's hard to think of a single physical deficiency that would be as difficult to overcome as that, but somehow, he did. Finding a job, particularly one that involves working with many other people, might be a little bit harder.

There's no getting around the primacy of teeth in the way we look at and, unfairly or not, judge each other. Clearly, if you're missing even one tooth, you want to have that taken care of by a top quality dentist -- whether or not it's in the front of your mouth. If you're not missing a tooth, you want to keep it that way. Your best bet is to find your way to a first-rate dentist in Northridge, Van Nuys, or North Hollywood. Just give Hamlin Dental a call at 888-400-8011.

The Future of Dentistry

If you're over a certain age, the idea that it's now 2014 can be bit overwhelming, if only because a lot of us really were expecting flying cars by now -- but that's not to say that there haven't been some pretty amazing technological innovations in just about every field. Of course, if you're a dentist in Van Nuys, you're going to be most interested in the technologies that impact dentistry. Certainly digital technology in regards to dental X-rays has sped up the process of diagnosis.

Since Hamlin Dental Group is all about gentle dentistry, we're also happy to say that great strides have been made in terms of anesthesia. While no one loves getting that first shot of Novocaine, today's younger dental-phobes would be terrified to know what a hypo full of the stuff looked and felt like back in the 1970s; today's subtler approach to injections might not be the dental equivalent of flying cars, but it's definitely important. So are the big strides we've made in terms of cosmetic dentistry and orthodontia.

Now, we're reading about toothbrushes that actually use mobile apps to report back to parents about whether or not their kids are brushing sufficiently. We don't know whether to be delighted or slightly creeped out by that prospect, but there it is.

One thing we do know about the future of an individual dental prospects, which is that taking care of your teeth now is the best and only way way to insure you'll still have them in the future! If you've been putting off a visit, it might be time to turn to the office for a   dentist Northridge, North Hollywood, and Van Nuys residents turn to first by calling us right away at 888-400-8011.