Holistic Children’s Dentistry

close-up smiling little girlSo, you are a parent who really cares about your child, right?

You are not someone who notices some black spots on the teeth of your little ones and goes to the next dentist who just drills out those black spots and fills them with amalgam, correct?

We quite honestly believe this is the greatest gift you could give to your child.

Any other gifts and toys might create more instant joy, yet those things are temporary. Instead, imagine sending your child on the way with good health?

That is a real gift!

Landing here on this page shows that you can look at a situation in longer terms, not just instant gratification.

You probably have some good idea already what holistic dentistry is, but let’s look together and make sure we are on the same boat.

refrigerator heat exchangerOur bodies are finely tuned machines that need to be well maintained to perform optimally. This is particularly true for little bodies. If something goes wrong at the very start, how could the final product be the best it could be?

Certainly, the comparison with a machine lags but it allows us to get a good grasp of the principles. Let’s take an everyday machine that we are all familiar with – your refrigerator. It has a grid of many little pipes on the back somewhere that gets warm from the heat that is extracted from the inside of the fridge, and a fan blows that heat away from that grid and into the room.

Over time this grid collects dust from the air that is blown through and looses just a tiny bit efficiency every week. Not really noticeable but after a year or two, your fridge does not seem to be working so well, and it seems to be running much more often than it did when it was new. 

So, you just turn down the thermostat a bit and all is well again?

Nope – you should not! That would be the same as the non-holistic dentist would do when he fixes the cavity with an amalgam – or silver – filling.

As a holistic fridge repairman, you would know that you just clean the heat exchanger (that grid of little pipes) as that is the cause of the reduced efficiency.

If only kids bodies were so simple!

But the principle is the same, only the possible causes are much more diverse. Too many black spots on your little princess’ teeth might be caused by the lack of a nutritional element or a multitude of other causes.

That’s why you would need a dentist who sees the body with all it’s interconnections to be able to evaluate each individual little patient. That might take some time, but is the best investment you could ever make.

One area of our practice where these principles become very visible and important is orthodontics.

Your non-holistic orthodontist might get a new patient with some teeth that are coming out crooked. The straight forward handling would be to pull out some of the other teeth to create space for the crooked teeth to straighten out with the help of braces.

This appears to handle the situation – but in the long run, this is a great disservice to the little patient. As a grown-up, that little princess might end up with a fleeing chin, an unpleasing profile and possibly sleep apnea.

The correct approach to this problem would be to create more space in the jaw by widening the jaw itself instead of amputating perfectly healthy teeth.

Let us show you an example of how this works if done correctly.

Take a look at this young lady…

girl before jaw development

To the untrained eye, this is a cute young girl, but what is instantly obvious to the holistic dentist, is the fact that the lower jaw is simply too small. This would result in a fleeing chin when this girl grows up.

So, with this little patient, we got to work and started to develop the lower jaw. We can’t go into details in here but if you are interested in learning how all this is done, we have a dedicated website that can teach you all this. You find it at Non-Extraction Orthodontics. info.

As you will learn on that website, this cute girl turned into a young lady with a very pleasing profile – no sign of a fleeing chin…

After jaw development

… and we know that a well-developed chin conveys strong will and perseverance, and we all want this for our kids, right?

This is just one of the areas where you want a holistic dentist to treat your child. Another important area is simply the environment of the dentist’s office.  Being relaxed with the dentist and the whole office staff will make all the difference for any required visits to the dentist in later life. If it’s fun to go to the dentist – including ‘how the laser works’, or picking up a little something from the ‘treasure chest’ after a successful session will have an effect on how the young lady will perceive a dentist visit even when she is not that young anymore.

So – give us a call at (818) 247-7828 and find out what we can do for your little prince or princess.