Embracing the infant first visit – one GP dentist’s experience

Photo of poster in Dr. Janet Leith’s waiting room

By Dr. John O’Keefe

When I sat in the waiting room at the office of Dr. Janet Leith of Ottawa for my recall visit recently, the first thing I noticed was the prominently featured CDA poster informing patients that her dental office encourages parents to bring their children for a first dental visit by age one.

At the end of my visit, I sat and asked Janet  about when she had incorporated this approach into her practice, what trepidation she had prior to adopting it, how she used it as a practice building strategy and what sort of benefits she has seen arise from it. You can hear the 5-minute recording of our conversation by clicking on the audio link below.

Janet told me that a study club session conducted by some pediatric dentists a few years back had convinced her that is would be a very sensible strategy, especially because she had noticed that she was seeing a significant number of 3-year-olds that already had lots of carious lesions. One of the biggest challenges she encountered initially was to convince parents that the oral health of their infants was important and worth nurturing.

Now, when Janet finds out that a female patient is pregnant, she gives her a little kit that provides information about the importance of oral health for very young children and age-appropriate means to clean their teeth. Any visits with children under the age of 3 are with Janet herself, and not with a hygienist, and she remains surprised by how much disease she observes in children so young.

Photo of Dr. Janet Leith’s kit for expectant mothers

Getting children onto the right path to oral health at a young age is the greatest pay-off of early visits, in Janet’s view, especially since all too often parents haven’t even started brushing their children’s teeth by age one.

Janet has no worries about crying kids being a practice disruption, because she has a nice knee-to-knee examination strategy for which she works in tandem with a parent. The fact that a child cries is even an advantage because the crying open mouth is one that is really easy to look around. She has also found that the word is getting around that she sees little ones in her office and this has brought new families to the practice as patients.

If she has any concerns, one is that she would like to see other health professionals more involved with promoting oral health and the idea of a dental home for very young children.  She would prefer if all the oral health information sheets she puts in her kit for expectant mother could come from her dental associations, rather than some being from other online sources.

Dr. Janet Leith on the importance of first dental visits

Download the First Visit, First Tooth poster from the CDA website

What do you do to promote infant oral health?

I would like to hear your strategies for getting young infants on the path to good oral health. I invite you share any resources that you use to promote the oral health of infants. Besides writing in the Comments box below, please use the Oasis Discussions “Upload your Content” feature to send us documents, photos or videos pertinent to the first dental visit in your office. 

Please remember that anything you upload doesn’t go “live” immediately, it comes to our team here and we will follow-up with you about any actions to take.