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Emergency Care

A study published in General Dentistry, the clinical journal of the Academy of General Dentistry, investigated 72,000 adult emergency room patient visits; of those, 2,895 visits were for the treatment of dental conditions, representing 3.8 percent of all the hospital emergency room visits.

Toothaches

To comfort your child, rinse the mouth with water. Apply a cold compress or ice wrapped in a cloth. Do not put heat or aspirin on the sore area.

Fractured Teeth

If a tooth is fractured, rinse mouth with warm water and use an ice pack or cold compress to reduce swelling. Use ibuprofen, not aspirin, for pain. Immediately contact your dentist.

Minor fractures can be smoothed by the dentist with a sandpaper disc or simply left alone. Another option is to restore the tooth with a composite restoration. In either case, treat the tooth with care for several days.

Moderate fractures include damage to the enamel, dentin and/or pulp. If the pulp is not permanently damaged, the tooth may be restored with a full permanent crown. If pulpal damage does occur, further dental treatment will be required.

Severe fractures often mean a traumatized tooth with slim chance of recovery.

Knocked Out Teeth

Quick action can save a knocked out tooth, prevent infection, and reduce the need for extensive dental treatment. Rinse the mouth with water and apply cold compresses to reduce swelling. Retrieve the tooth by the crown - not by the root. If you are unable to replace the tooth easily in its socket, place it in a container with a lid and use low-fat milk, saline solution, or saliva, and visit the dentist or the emergency room as soon as possible.

If your baby's tooth is knocked out, see your dentist, who may recommend a space maintainer to reserve the gap until the permanent tooth comes in. In instances where a primary tooth is loose because of the emergence of a permanent tooth, have the child wiggle the tooth or eat something hard, such as an apple to help it along. Once the shell of the tooth is disconnected from the root, the discomfort in extracting a loose primary tooth is minimal.

Sports Injuries

According to the Academy of General Dentistry, many sports-related emergencies involving teeth can be avoided by following the rules and remembering dental first aid steps.

Common swimming pool accidents occur when children, swimming underwater, quickly ascend to the surface, hitting the hard ledge, and loosening the front tooth. Running on slippery, slick cement and ceramic pool surfaces also can send your child headfirst into the ground, increasing the likelihood of a chipped or loose tooth.

First Aid

Follow these simple first aid steps for a tooth that has been either knocked loose or knocked out:

If a tooth is displaced, push it back into its original position and bite down so the tooth does not move. Call your dentist or visit the emergency room. The dentist may splint the tooth in place to the two healthy teeth next to the loose tooth.
If the tooth is completely knocked out, pick the tooth up by the crown - not by the root, as handling the root may damage the cells necessary for bone reattachment and hinder the replant. If the tooth cannot be replaced in its socket, do not let the tooth dry out. Place it in a container with a lid and use low-fat milk, saline solution, or saliva. Visit the dentist as soon as possible - the longer the tooth is out of the mouth, the less likely the tooth will be able to be saved.