Embracing Children With Special Health Care Needs

EMBRACING CHILDREN WITH SPECIAL HEALTH CARE NEEDS

Taking care and upbringing of Children with special needs could be a tough task for parents. About 12 million children in India are special children. American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry (AAPD) defines special health care needs (SHCN) as “any physical, developmental, mental, sensory, behavioral, cognitive, or emotional impairment or limiting condition that requires medical management, health care intervention, and/or use of specialized services or programs. Since, they usually have difficulties in performing daily activities, hence they generally have  poor oral-hygiene. Parents also gives more importance to urgent medical needs, neglecting the oral health of a child thereby increasing the risk of developing oral diseases. 

Barriers to dental care in your child

• Poor understanding of the importance of oral health, less priority as compared to other medical problem

• Difficulty in finding trained & specialized dentists, to treat such children

• Due to disabilities, such children are usually un-cooperative.

• High cost of dental treatments. 

How to improve dental health in your child?

Preventive measures:

• Wipe infant’s gums with a damped cloth or gauze after every feed

• While sleeping child should not be left with a bottle of milk

• Upon eruption of teeth, brush the child’s teeth with soft bristles tooth brush twice a day using a pea-sized portion of toothpaste

• Use fluoridated toothpaste 

• After every meal or snacks, rinse the child’s mouth

• Help the child brush his/her teeth thoroughly, if he/she cannot do it him/her self

• Use specially-shaped brushes, in case your child have poor grasp of the handle of a toothbrush

• Maintain the healthy and balanced diet to the child

• Junk foods or food rich in sugars should be avoided

• Visit a dentist for regular check-ups

Visit the dentist for treatment:                                                     

Before visiting the dentist, you should consider the following:

·       The dentist to be visited should have additional training and specialized knowledge to manage children with special needs

• The clinic should be well-equipped to manage your child and any kind of medical emergency

• Choose an early morning appointment

• The child should be familiarized with the dental clinic settings in the first visit.

The Department of Pediatric & Preventive Dentistry of this college fulfils all the requirements a parent is looking for getting the oral health check-up done for their child with special health care needs. This department is fully equipped for managing the children with special health care needs as well.