Some Things You Probably Don’t Know About Pediatric Dental Emergencies.

The Situation

Our weekend did not go as planned. We expected to get up on Sunday and take the kids out for dim sum, suggestion from my oldest daughter. I got up early on Sunday (in an attempt) to let my wife sleep later. Anything past 8:30AM is really late in our house. I needed some baby supplies so I took the little one upstairs. That’s when I heard a thud and THE squeal. I rushed down the stairs and put the baby down and picked up my son who was already bleeding out of his mouth. He “decided” to taste the wood work at full speed.

I got some paper towels. I started to blot the blood while I inspected the situation. Ugh. One of his front teeth was clearly about a millimeter back. FREEZE NOODAD!

What would you do in this situation?

• I was not sure if this required immediate treatment
• I did not really know who to call as I have never heard of a hospital having an on-call dentist
• I was not sure who was going to take him as my wife was asleep.

My Reaction

I quickly called for my wife who was already out of bed as she heard the boy wailing. I called the hospital who told me to call the pediatrician who told me to call the dentist. Apparently as long as the emergency is purely dental, the best thing to do is call the dentist. My kid’s dentist was not on call for the weekend so we ended up driving into the city. I looked back at the boy’s lip. It was swollen up so much that he talked like Mushmouth from Fat Albert. By the way, the dude with the pink hat over his head is Donald. Mushmouth has buck teeth.

Try to keep calm so that you do not further upset the kid. Tell them that you are going to take care of them and that everything is going to be OK. If the kid has a fat lip like mine, consider icing it. They may feel a little nauseous from getting a tooth knocked out or chipped. Try putting them in front of the TV once you have them relatively calm to attempt to take their mind off of the situation.

At the Dentist

The emergency dentist was a good guy. He let my son sit on my lap. He had obviously been doing this for a while as he had some techniques that got my kid to pay attention in spite of the pain.

• He zapped him with water.
• He zapped him with air.
• He made the air make high pitched squealing noises in his cupped hand.

My boy thought these were awesome tricks. He did scream when the dentist actually touched his teeth, but he still found the tricks funny after the fact. He was even willing to show the dentist how he could brush his teeth (the ones that were not hurt), even though he usually will not do this at home.

Hopefully this is not something that you will ever have to deal with, but it is worth asking yourself these questions:

What would I do if my kid broke a tooth or one was displaced?
How would I keep my kid calm?
Am I prepared to see and deal with the blood in a calm manner?
If not, can I pretend I am?