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As the summer ends and school begins, our mom and dad minds are on full schedule mode. Organizing, planning, adjusting to school life is a transition, and lots of to-do lists are made. Have you thought about adding a to-do for a mouth guard for your sport loving child?

Mouth injuries are a more common occurrence than ever, and some severe injuries can be avoided. Why are mouth guards important?

They are designed to dissipate the force to the entire mouth jaw complex during impact injury. This may seem counter-intuitive, but imagine getting hit and the concentrated force is focused in one location, this can do more damage than we think - like knocking out a tooth. Now imagine with a mouth guard in place the force from the contact is dissipated through the arch (jaw). In other words the force is spread out, resulting in less damage.

Mouth guards are meant to prevent the severity of injury, as oppose the injury itself. Let’s face it contact sports, falls, bumps and bruises are expected; we just want to mitigate the resulting pain and injury.

The difficulty sometimes are children are in mixed dentition (meaning they have both baby and adult teeth). Due to their ever changing mouths replacement mouth guards maybe needed more frequently. In this transition stage, You might consider an over the counter mouthguard with the advice of your dental professional.

If your child participates in a contact sport and is in mixed dentition, I recommend one for the season with the expectation of frequent adjustments.

Teenagers with all their permanent teeth can come into the dental office and get a mouth guard specific to them.

Remember, if it fits better it will protect better!

Enjoy your sport season!