Make Time for Your Children’s Teeth During National Children’s Dental Health Month

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sealant day
Sealant Day is held annually at Harcum College's Cohen Dental Center. Images via Harcum College.

By Gale Martin and Jean Byrnes-Ziegler

February is National Children’s Dental Health Month. It’s the perfect time to consider that preventative oral care and healthy dental habits can benefit children for the rest of their lives.

Did you know that children’s oral health can impact their self-esteem, school performance, and general overall well-being? Problems in children’s mouths can affect the rest of their bodies. When children are physically ill, most of us don’t hesitate to get them the medical care they need. However, plenty of parents mistakenly assume that their children’s teeth aren’t vulnerable to disease because they are young.

Every parent knows preventative care can be expensive. For families without dental insurance, the costs can be prohibitive. While twice yearly visits are recommended, the reality for some families is that paying for dental care doesn’t make the priority list when basic needs such as food, shelter, and clothing must come first.

The Dental Hygiene Program at Harcum College understands the lasting value of preventative dental care to the health, self-esteem, and success of children. Those are some of the reasons why the college operates the Cohen Dental Center in Bryn Mawr to meet more of the community’s needs for quality preventative care.

One of the Center’s signature programs for the last 16 years has been Sealant Day, offering free preventative dental services for children ages 6-12 including sealants, which are plastic compounds that coat the biting surfaces of teeth, effectively blocking damage from food and drinks. Most decay happens on the biting surfaces of children’s molars because they have deep grooves. It is difficult for children to brush that deeply, so tooth decay typically begins in those crevices if sealants haven’t been applied.

On Monday, Feb. 17 from 9 AM-3 PM, dozens, perhaps hundreds, of sealants will be applied to children’s teeth, free of charge. We hope to fill the chairs in the Dental Center for all three appointment slots because Sealant Day offers tremendous value to families. Often sealants can cost $40 per tooth in a dental office. For example, free sealants can save a family with two school-age children literally hundreds of dollars. Sealants can also deter the future expense of drilling and filling cavities, not to mention minimizing all the discomfort and anxiety children associate with those tasks.

Sealant Day appointments are on a first-served basis and are offered regardless of income or ability to pay, with no other financial qualifying information necessary. Offering this service provides our dental hygiene students with a service learning experience and helps them meet the required hours of pediatric care to become registered dental hygienists. We believe in the value the dental hygiene profession brings to the health care industry, which is one of the reasons the College began offering a dental hygiene major in 1990 or 30 years ago.

The desire to serve has been internalized by our students and faculty, who annually volunteer for Mom-n-PA portable dental clinics, and why the Cohen Dental Center offers free preventative dental services for children and adolescents year round including cleanings, fluoride treatments, oral examinations, and x-rays. The College has been fortunate to attract support from foundations who want to help Harcum serving the public good, and we’ve been able to install state-of-the-art equipment and expand our dental clinic as a result.

The mouth is the gateway to the body, and preventive dental services will help children avoid conditions such as gum disease, cavities, and tooth decay in the near term while impacting their ability to rely on their teeth as adults.

This February, take time for your kids’ teeth. Let the Dental Hygiene program at Harcum College help your children take an important step toward a lifetime of good oral care.

Appointments are still being accepted for Sealant Day 2020 on Monday, Feb. 17 by calling 610-526-6113 or e-mailing dentalclinic@harcum.edu.

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Gale Martin is the Director of Communications and Marketing at Harcum College. Jean Byrnes-Ziegler is the Dental Hygiene Program Director.

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