Protecting Your Child's Teeth Using Mouth Guards

A damaged tooth or injured mouth is one of the problems you might encounter if your child is active in contact sports. Even for adults, dealing with dental trauma isn’t easy. It can cause severe discomfort or even cause the need for complex dental procedures such as root canals or dental implants.

When protecting your child’s dental and overall well-being, any precautions you take are worthwhile. To prevent the likelihood of dental trauma during sports, wearing a mouthguard is highly recommended.

A mouthguard is also essential in protecting teeth against the effects of tooth clenching and grinding. For mouthguards procedures near you, contact Raynham Dental Group.

The risk of not wearing a mouthguard during contact sports include:

• Damage to the soft tissue of the mouth such as lips, tongue, gums, and jaw
• Broken, fractured, chipped, or knocked-out teeth
• Fractured jaws
• Damaged restorations such as bridges and crowns
• Neck and cheek injuries
• Concussions

Importance of Using a Mouth Guard for Sports

The benefits of investing in a sports guard for your child include:

• It cushions the teeth against impact

Impact accidents during sports are very likely. The impact can involve a collision with another player or game tools such as a ball. Wearing a mouthguard reduces the impact of an impact, protecting your child’s teeth against damage.

• It prevents damage to the soft tissue of the mouth

A mild impact can cause cuts and bruises to your kid’s lips, cheeks, gums, and tongue during sports.

• Reduces the risk of concussion and jaw fractures

As shocking as it might be, wearing a mouthguard can protect your child against jaw impact, which can cause concussions and jaw fractures.
Treating concussion and fractured jaw requires complex, expensive, and lengthy procedures, which might be exhausting for you and your child.

• Prevents damage to dental restorations

If your kid has restorations such as braces and bridges, wearing a mouthguard can protect the restorations from damage. For instance, during an impact, braces and bridges can break or slide out of place. Sometimes damaged restorations can hurt or bruise the gums, teeth, cheeks, lips, or tongue.

Which Type of Sports Guards is Best?

When investing in a mouthguard for your kid, choosing a quality mouthguard is important to ensure maximum protection. Similarly, the mouthguard should be well-fitting without interfering with the kids speaking and breathing abilities.

Keep in mind that poor-fitting sports guards won’t adequately protect your child during an impact. Even worse, it can affect their breathing and speech, affecting their performance during sports.

Usually, there are three major types of mouthguards, including:

1. Stock mouthguards

These guards provide the most basic protection during an impact. Stock mouthguards are ready-made and available in your nearby sporting stores or pharmacies. These guards come in different sizes and aren’t customizable. While they may be the most comfortable, finding a perfect fit might be difficult. Also, sometimes they tend to be bulky, which can affect your kid’s speech and breathing.

2. Boil and bite mouth guards

These mouthguards are ready-made but customizable. After getting the mouthguard, you should boil it in water and ask your child to bite down on it to offer customized protection. Compared to stock mouthguards, boil and bite are more expensive and provide more protection against impacts.

3. Custom-Made Mouthguards

These mouthguards are made by a dentist. The dentist takes impressions of the child’s mouth and creates a customized mouthguard. Compared to other mouthguards, custom mouthguards fit perfectly and offer the best protection against sports impact.

Similarly, since they are customized according to your child’s mouth features, they won’t affect their breathing or speech. The only downside is that these mouthguards are expensive.

Caring for Your child’s Mouthguard

To ensure maximum protection, you must take good care of the mouthguard. If it gets worn-out or damaged, you should replace it immediately as it won’t offer any protection.

Mouthguards care tips include:

• Clean after each use
• Rinse them before wearing
• Avoid chewing on the mouthguard
• Store it in a cool place. Hot environments can cause it to deform or melt away
• Brush or rinse your mouth before wearing the mouthguard

Final Verdict

If you’re looking for the best protection for your child’s mouth, you should invest in custom-made mouthguards. They fit perfectly, offer maximum protection, and are durable than over-the-counter mouthguards. For mouthguard services, contact Raynham Dental Group to book your appointment.