Did Your Child Lose A Tooth While Playing Hockey? Follow These 3 Steps
Posted on: 8 June 2016
No matter how much protective gear your child wears when playing a contact sport, it may not be able to prevent an injury from happening. This is especially true when playing hockey, where hard hits are just a part of the game that are unavoidable. If your child does get knocked so hard that they lose a tooth, you'll need to follow these 3 steps to ensure that it can be saved.
Halt The Game Immediately To Find The Tooth
The key to saving a knocked out tooth is to ensure that you can get it back in one piece. Waiting until the end of the game to find a missing tooth will be too late, since it's possible that someone could run over the tooth and break it with their very sharp skates.
The game should be halted immediately so that everyone can carefully help find the tooth.
Carefully Pick Up, Rinse, and Reinsert The Tooth
Once you locate the tooth, it's crucial that you pick the tooth up by its sides and do not touch the root of the tooth. There are tons of germs on your hands, and you do not want them getting into the tooth that way.
You should rinse the tooth off with cold water to get any germs off of the tooth. Have your child rinse out their mouth using water that is at room temperature to clean it out. If you have access to some salt ,create a simple saltwater rinse which will help kill any bacteria in the socket when rinsing.
Next, you'll want to reinsert the tooth back into its socket to keep it moist. While you can also keep the tooth moist by putting it in a glass of milk, chances are that you do not have some on hand at your child's hockey game.
Place some gauze on top of the tooth and have your child gently bite down on it to hold the knocked-out tooth in its place. If there is swelling in the area, use cold compresses on outside of the mouth to reduce the swelling.
Visit An Emergency Dentist
It is not ideal to wait if you want to save a knocked-out tooth. Contact a local emergency dentist to be seen immediately. The faster you have a dentist securely reattach the tooth into your child's gums, the better chance they have of saving the tooth and allowing the gums to heal.
There is plenty of additional information online; check it out or visit your local dentist to learn more.
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