Boise Dental Tips for Preventing Sports-Related Injuries

For parents of children who play sports, it’s imperative that precautions are taken to prevent any damage from occurring your little athlete’s teeth and mouth. According to your Boise dentist, injuries to the face that affect a child’s teeth or gums occur fairly commonly, especially for children who play extreme physical sports (like football or soccer). Nearly 80% of all Boise dental injuries affect one or more of the front teeth resulting in gum damage as well. These types of injuries then affect your child’s ability to smile, eat, drink, and talk.

Prevention Tips

Sport related injuries rank #1 for tooth and mouth injuries for children & teenagers causing approximately 40% of all Boise dental injuries to these age groups. To prevent a sports related injury, your Boise dentist suggest considering the following:

• Mouth Guards: Offering the most effective way of preventing a sports related injury when participating in a sport is by wearing a mouth guard. The use of a mouth guard helps to provide additional protection to your child’s teeth in order to prevent cracking, chipping, breaking, or a knockout if they are struck in the face.
• Face Cages: A face cage offers additional protection against blunt force trauma to the face and mouth. Face cages help to prevent anything from directly striking the face during a sports related activity, and work especially well for children who play ice or field hockey.
• Helmets: Although a helmet won’t directly protect the Boise dental health of your little athletes teeth or gums, it does however protect the head, and can help to prevent concussions.

Fortunately for those who happen to suffer from tooth loss as a result of a sporting injury, knocked out teeth can be repaired or replaced. If you or your child find yourself in a Boise dental emergency situation due to a sports related injury, it’s important to seek out the help of your Boise dentist within an hour of a tooth becoming displaced. If the tooth is knocked out, carefully rinse off any debris, and place it back into the socket. However, if you are unable to reinsert the tooth, hold it in your mouth until you can reach our Boise dental office. If you have no other option, make sure to store the tooth in a shallow cup of milk until arriving at Summit Dental Group.

Stay safe & have fun!