Today we are going to answer some of our most common questions regarding sealants. What are they? Are they safe? When should my child get them?

A sealant is a very thin layer of plastic material that fits in the grooves of your child’s teeth. It goes in almost as a play dough and fills the deep grooves in the teeth. Once we shine a light on the play dough like substance, it turns as hard as the tooth. The best part about sealants is that they fill the grooves so that when the child eats licorice and lollipops, the sugar and bacteria don’t stick in the tooth and cause decay, otherwise known as cavities. Another good part is that if we can prevent cavities from developing, your child will most likely have very little decay down the road. Sealants have shown to be very effective and are a very cheap preventive measure that we can take to boost your child’s potential for good oral health. Insurance companies usually cover these at 100%! If you know anything about insurance, the reason they usually cover these at 100% is because they see value in investing their money into a process that will most likely prevent them from forking over a larger amount of money down the road due to cavities and decay. We highly recommend doing sealants on the first molars around the age of 6, and then on the second molars around the age of 12.

If you’d like to learn more about this topic, click here to visit our Pediatric Dentistry page! We’d love to hear from you! Click here to contact us today!

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