When it comes to choosing dental care for your whole family, you could go a variety of different routes. While you could take your kids to a pediatric dentist and the adults to a general dentist, this makes things more complicated and inconvenient and leaves you cut off from the invaluable benefits of taking the whole family to the same dentist.
Read on in this blog from Ladd Family Dental to find out how a family dentist can be a saving grace for your entire family’s dental needs.
What Is a Family Dentist?
A family dentist is a general dentist that treats both adults and children. Whereas a pediatric dentist specializes specifically in oral health care for children, we treat patients of all ages. A family dentist performs general dental care with an emphasis on prevention.
While the name ‘family dentistry’ may give you the impression that you must have a family to see one, you don’t need to have children to go to a family dentist. Anyone can get routine preventive and restorative care from a family dentist, but we also perform pediatric dental services such as silver diamine fluoride treatments, space maintainers, pulpotomies, and pediatric crowns.
Benefits of Going to a Family Dentist
Convenience - Everything is more convenient with a family dentist. To begin with, you won’t need to find a new dentist once your child reaches adulthood just because pediatric dentists don’t treat patients over 18 years old.
You can also schedule convenient appointments for the entire family in back-to-back dental appointments instead of frantically looking for dental appointments for each member of your family.
As a family dental practice, we will send out reminders for you to schedule your regular checkups and cleanings and we can work around your schedule to arrange appointment times that work best for you.
This eliminates the need for you to take off work or take your child out of school because an appointment was only available at a specific time on a specific day.
Knowledge of Family Dental History - By treating both parent and child, we get to know the intimate details of your family dental history so we know what hereditary oral health problems your child is at risk for.
When parents have a high prevalence of cavities or gum disease, a child is also at a predisposed risk for developing these conditions. A pediatric dentist would not have the insight to know what oral health problems could be passed from parent to child.
However, this is an important piece of the puzzle, as genetics play a significant role in cavity risk, tooth structure, and enamel strength.
Regular & Consistent Service - It’s very important to establish a dental home – one specific place you go to for consistent and regular dental care. If you can establish a dental home for the entire family, that’s even better.
Having a dental home ensures that you attend regular dental cleanings and checkups every 6 months, as recommended by the ADA. By taking everyone to the same dentist over many years, you establish a trusting relationship and you can count on this dentist for reliable dental care.
We will show you how to prevent oral health problems, properly care for your children’s teeth, and what issues to look out for. If a dental emergency ever happens, you need to have a place to go and someone who you can count on at any time so you aren't wasting time looking up various dental practices that are open.
Ease Dental Anxiety in Children - Dental anxiety is a fear of the dentist that can lead to avoidance of the dental office entirely. While it can occur in patients of all ages, children are especially vulnerable.
Taking your child to the same dentist from a young age gives them the chance to form a positive and trusting relationship with dental care, especially if they see you being treated by the same dentist. This reduces their risk of feeling fearful or stressed by going to the dentist and prevents dental avoidance.
Schedule Your Next Appointment At Ladd Family Dental
If you’re in the market for a new dentist, then give family dentistry a try – you and your family won’t regret it. Contact us at Ladd Family Dental today to schedule your next preventative appointment with Dr. Parke Ladd.