Is your child one of the 64% of children who DON’T wear mouthguards when they play sports?

It is mouthguard awareness month, visit The ADA Website for details on how to enter the “mouthguard photo comp” for your chance to win a $1000 sports grant for your childs school or club.

Mouthguards can prevent serious injury to your childs mouth.

When Should Children Wear Mouthguards To Play Sport?

Here is a simplified breakdown of how, as a parent I would think about the necessity of a mouthguard, three items to consider;

1. Age of the child
2. Level of contact of the sport and area of the body that contact is usually made.
3. Equipment used in the sport, e.g. how hard is the ball, are there rackets, sticks, bats used.

To help explain my rationale as a Dentist and a parent I have picked five sports to breakdown these three items in table format.

I have given each sport an arbitrary rating based on the level of head contact, danger, level of potential mouth injury and extent of injury if an accident was to occur. These are arbitrary ratings based on my personal experience and professional feelings about the sports and mouth injuries, not based on any data, but this is what I would advise my patients.

Key

–          × – no mouthguard required

–          √ – mouthguard required

The last question to answer;

Does my child need a dentist made mouthguard?

Around the age of 12 years, a child usually has their full adult dentition. I would suggest a professionally made mouthguard around this time. Children under the age of 12 years can usually get away with wearing a mouldable pharmacist mouthguard. Try a couple of different brands as the better they mould around the teeth, the more effective they will be should an injury to the mouth occur.

How much does a professional mouthguard cost?

When it comes to the protection of my patient’s teeth, I do not want preventative dental to be prohibitively expensive. My overall philosophy when charging for mouthguards is to charge a minimal difference to cover the costs of materials between what the dental lab charges me. I would much rather my patients wear mouthguards, than not.  The cost for a professional mouthguard is usually about $140AUD.