In children who cannot spit, teeth should be brushed using paste, and excess paste and saliva in the mouth should be wiped with a gauze.

A pediatric dentist examination is recommended 6 months after the first teeth appear in the mouth. The purpose of these check-up appointments is to inform the family about nutrition and oral hygiene, to stop possible caries at the initial stage and to ensure that the child goes through the primary and mixed dentition period with a healthy mouth.

Milk teeth play an important role in the child's growth and development by enabling him/her to chew effectively until the permanent teeth take their place in the mouth. Especially the front incisor primary teeth are important in speech and aesthetics, they contribute to the development of the child's social life, communication skills and self-confidence.

They act as placeholders in the mouth for the permanent teeth developing under the milk teeth. Severe pain and swelling may occur due to untreated primary tooth infections. These infections can cause shape, color and deformities in the permanent tooth below the milk tooth.

Decays in milk teeth break over time, creating a gap in the tooth. This space is filled by the millimetric shift of other teeth. Therefore, space loss may occur in untreated teeth, even if there is no tooth extraction. This causes children's permanent teeth to become crooked, increasing the need for orthodontic braces treatment.

When the time comes, milk teeth shake and fall out and are replaced by permanent teeth. Instead of milk teeth lost prematurely due to infection or trauma, space maintainers are placed to protect the place where the permanent tooth will be placed. Placeholders can be fixed or movable. The appropriate space maintainer for your child can be decided after an examination by the pediatric dentist.

Sticky foods such as gum should not be chewed when using a fixed placeholder.

Parents should be warned not to play with the sweat trap with their hands until your child adapts to the foreign material in his mouth.

The physician's instructions regarding the insertion and removal times and storage conditions of removable space maintainers should be followed.

During tooth brushing, care should be taken to thoroughly brush the area around the fixed space maintainer and to brush the movable space maintainer outside the mouth.

When milk teeth, like permanent teeth, become severely decayed, root canal treatment is needed because the vascular-nerve packages inside them are affected. Amputation treatments, which can be called canal treatments and half canal treatments, are performed very frequently in primary teeth. Since different materials than permanent teeth are used in these treatments, they do not affect the loosening and falling out of the milk tooth when the time comes for the permanent tooth below to erupt. Thanks to this treatment, premature loss of milk teeth and related problems are prevented.

White composite resin fillings need solid tooth tissue to adhere to, and the unbreakability of the filling is directly proportional to the remaining tooth tissue. In addition, it is more difficult to bond to milk teeth, which are different from the permanent tooth tissue structure. Durable stainless steel coatings that surround the tooth are preferred, especially in cases of extensive caries and in cases where the risk of recurrence of caries is high. One of the advantages of stainless steel crowns is that they can be placed quickly on the teeth of non-cooperative children, where white fillings cannot be applied, which require 100% compliance from the child in order to be applied in a healthy way.

Common caries of primary incisors seen at an early age are called baby bottle caries. These cavities may occur not only as a result of bottle feeding, but also as a result of sleeping directly after feeding with pure breast milk. In order to prevent bottle tooth decay, it is recommended to drink water after night feeding and, if possible, to clean the teeth with the help of gauze. Advanced dental tissue loss in the incisors makes it difficult to restore these teeth in a durable manner. Zirconium crowns, which are a more durable and aesthetic material than fillings, can be preferred in the restoration of these teeth. In pediatric prefabricated zirconium crowns, there is no need to take measurements and wait as in adult patient treatments. The appropriate size is selected from zirconium crowns of various sizes and glued to the treated tooth.

There are two main factors in the formation of caries. Tooth tissue and bacterial plaque. To prevent caries, it is necessary to strengthen tooth tissue and prevent bacterial plaque.

Things that can be done to strengthen dental tissue; 

• Use of fluoride toothpaste, gel and solutions,
• Fluoride varnish applications applied by the dentist in 3, 6, 12 month periods depending on the degree of caries risk,
• Use of pastes containing casein phosphopeptide-Amorphous calcium phosphate.

Bakteri plağını engellemek için yapılabilecekler; 

• Brushing your teeth effectively with toothpaste for two minutes twice a day,
• Regulation of nutrition, especially limiting the consumption of packaged foods,
• Covering the caries-prone surfaces of the teeth, which have not yet formed, with a protective material (fissure sealant).
• In order to prevent the transmission of bacteria, especially at an early age, separation between the spoon used by parents and the baby's spoon is among the things that can be done.

Particularly in children with a high risk of caries, surfaces that have not yet decayed but are prone to decay are covered with filling-like materials. In this way, food residues are prevented from filling into the recesses on the teeth, which are difficult to clean areas, and causing tooth decay.

Fissure sealants can be applied to primary and permanent teeth. There is no need for local anesthesia during fissure sealant application. Therefore, it can be preferred by physicians and parents as an introductory treatment so that children can get used to the treatment and see the instruments used.

Dental treatments for extremely fearful children can be performed in a single session under operating room/hospital conditions under sedation or general anesthesia. In this way, oral and dental health is restored and precautions are taken to prevent the need for new dental treatment through regular check-ups.

It is an anesthesia method that facilitates interventions for treatment or diagnosis by reducing the patient's anxiety and fears by suppressing consciousness to varying degrees by preserving vital functions with pharmacological agents. The aim is for the patient to be able to breathe on his own during the sedation applied in dental interventions. However, since the level of sedation may vary from minimal sedation to general anesthesia, it must be applied in the Sedation and General Anesthesia Unit within ADSM and ADSHs or in private HOSPITAL operating rooms, as stated in Article 19/(3) of the Regulation on Private Health Institutions Providing Oral and Dental Health Services. .

In case of general anesthesia, the patient is asleep. General anesthesia is applied in the operating room environment by a team (anesthesia technician, nurse) led by an anesthesiologist. In all general anesthesia applications, the patient is monitored with standard monitoring (SpO2, ECG, arterial blood pressure, temperature); monitoring oxygenation, ventilation, circulation and body temperature; Pulse oximetry, pulse rate, breathing rate and blood pressure monitoring are important.

According to the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry (AAPD);

• Psychological, emotional, mental development level; Patients who cannot adapt due to their physical or medical conditions,
• Patients who cannot receive local anesthesia due to acute infection or allergy,
• Patients with severe fear and anxiety,
• Dental treatment can be planned under general anesthesia for patients whose medical risks will be reduced with general anesthesia.

• Patients who are healthy, well-adjusted or need minimal dental treatment,
• In applications planned for the convenience of the patient, the patient's relative or the dentist,
• General anesthesia should not be planned in the presence of medical conditions where general anesthesia is not recommended.

Especially in children, trauma to primary and permanent teeth is frequently encountered. Front incisors are the teeth most frequently traumatized. Some orthodontic disorders (occlusions in which the front incisors are positioned further forward) increase the likelihood of teeth being impacted.

In trauma, a tooth may be completely dislodged or a part of it may break. In this case, the first thing to do is to find the broken tooth piece and place it in a carrier environment. Fresh milk is generally recommended because it is easily accessible. Afterwards, a pediatric dentist examination is required along with the tooth. Early intervention is important in fractures.

If a tooth that has been completely displaced due to trauma can be placed in the mouth where it emerged without touching its root, then the pediatric dentist can be visited without wasting time.

Your dentist will create the prognosis and planning of the treatment according to the time that has passed since the trauma, the impact the tooth received, whether it is a milk or permanent tooth, whether the tooth has been stored under appropriate conditions, and the age of the child.

Facial swelling due to dental infections frequently occurs. This situation can be caused by milk and permanent teeth. In case of facial swelling, a dentist should be consulted immediately. The use of antibiotics without examination may lead to the development of resistance as a result of unnecessary and useless antibiotic use due to failure to select the appropriate antibiotic and dosage. In cases where the swelling subsides, the tooth must be treated; otherwise, the infection will only be suppressed without treating the tooth. In the future, the chance of the tooth being treated decreases.

In cases of localized, uncommon, well-circumscribed abscesses, tooth extraction can be performed by evaluating the medical history taken from the patient. The suitability of the tooth and the patient for extraction should be evaluated by the physician.

Infections in primary teeth can affect the permanent teeth developing underneath. Color changes, deformities may occur in permanent teeth, they may be prone to decay, or they may not be able to erupt into the mouth in the position they should be.