Sedation for Children During Dental Care

Dr. Girdlestone provides dental sedation for children during dental surgery to reduce anxiety, improve cooperation and to remove the dental disease process and prevent further dental or medical complications.

Pediatric dental sedation may be recommended or required if your child undergoes a complex or lengthy procedure. With dental sedation the pediatric dentist may use one of multiple forms of a mild sedative drug to relieve anxiety while the dental procedure is being performed. As pediatric professionals, the decision to recommend or require sedation for a child’s dental care is always dictated by what is most advantageous for the child. Dental sedation is considered very low risk, and as a practice, our goal is to care for your child’s dental needs in the least invasive and safest manner possible.

Types Of Dental Sedation

The type of dental sedation recommend for your child depends on each individual child in the extent and complexity of the pediatric dental being perform.

• Nitrous Oxide/Oxygen Analgesia — Nitrous oxide “laughing gas” and oxygen analgesia smells good and its effects are completely removed five minutes after discontinuing inhalation of the gas. This has been helpful to many children by reducing their anxiety.
• Pediatric Dental Office Sedation involves administering an oral medication and maybe used in conjunction with nitrous oxide oxygen analgesia.
• IV Sedation in our office is performed with an anesthesiologist administering IV sedation medications. This may be used when conscious sedation is ineffective.
• Hospital pediatric dentistry maybe required in a hospital operating room under general anesthesia.

The benefits of dental sedation include reduction of anxiety, elimination of disruptive behavior, cooperation for dental treatment, prevention of self-injury during a dental procedure, and removal of the dental disease process as to prevent further dental or medical complications. 

To schedule an appointment with our pediatric dentist, Dr. Steve Girdlestone, please phone 330-491-7777.