Our Blog

We all remember hearing this: “Finish your milk, it’s good for your bones!” If you have kids of your own now, you may catch yourself repeating many of the things you were told growing up.

Though parents occasionally exaggerate to get their kids to do certain things (such as eat veggies or behave), they’re spot-on about milk. Consuming enough dairy every day is crucial for growing children, because this can set them up to have strong and healthy teeth for the rest of their lives.

To understand the effects of dairy on your child’s teeth, take a look at tooth structure. Think of it in terms of layers: the innermost layer is the living tissue, the second layer is dentine (a calcified tissue), and the final one is the enamel, aka the white part of the tooth. Keep in mind that 96 percent of your enamel is made up of minerals like calcium.

Now, milk and other dairy products are excellent sources of calcium, so when you consider the need to build strong enamel for the first line of defense, it’s easy to see the connection between dairy and good dental health. When your son or daughter consumes dairy products, the body sends the incoming calcium to growing bones, which includes teeth.

This makes children’s teeth and bones stronger all around. Growing youngsters who do not get enough dairy in their diet are at risk for improper tooth development, as well as other dental problems.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, children under the age of eight should be receiving at least two and a half cups of dairy per day. Children older than eight require three full cups, which is the same amount recommended for male and female adults.

If you’re looking for easy ways to incorporate dairy into your children’s diet, try snacks like cottage cheese, a milk-based smoothie, yogurt, cheese sticks, non-fat milk, and fruit parfaits, to name a few. Once you get a feel for what they like most, furnishing the ideal amount of dairy to their diet should be no problem!

If you’re concerned about your child’s teeth or have questions about a healthy diet, don’t hesitate to contact our Vorhees office and ask a member of our team.

Part of every dental checkup is making sure all of your teeth are strong and healthy. Drs. Paul Pasternack, Chara Pasternack, and Christine Biondi will have you open wide to look at your teeth, use special little mirrors to get a good look around each tooth, and take X-rays to make sure your teeth are healthy both inside and out.

Why does your dentist want to check each tooth so carefully? One big reason is to look for cavities. What are cavities, and why don’t you want them? We have some questions and answers if you’re cavity-curious!

Just What Is a Cavity?

A cavity is a little hole in your tooth caused by tooth decay.

A Hole in My Tooth? How Did It Get There?

Most of the time, we get cavities because of plaque buildup.

Plaque is a sticky film that builds up on our teeth all through the day. It’s mostly made up of saliva (or spit), tiny bits of the food we chew, and germs called bacteria.

The bacteria in plaque use these food particles from our meals for their own food. Part of the way they use that food is to create acids.

Even though our teeth are very strong, acids can make them weaker as they break down the hard enamel on the outside of the tooth. This is the start of tooth decay. As time goes by, and more acids attack our tooth, a weak spot can grow larger and deeper, making a hole in the tooth.

Why Are Cavities Bad for My Teeth?

If a cavity gets too big, it can reach the inside of your tooth. Inside each tooth, we have pulp. Healthy pulp keeps our tooth alive, and it contains nerves which can feel pain. This is why a deep cavity gives you a toothache. If the pulp is damaged, your tooth is in danger.

How Can My Dentist Help?

When you have regular checkups, Drs. Paul Pasternack, Chara Pasternack, and Christine Biondi can find small cavities and treat them before they become big ones. This helps keep your smile healthy and toothache-free!

To start, your dentist will give you medicine to make the area around your tooth numb if you need it. When your tooth is numb, your dentist will clean away all of the decay with special small drills. They can be noisy, but they won’t hurt.

Once all of the decay is gone, your dentist will fill the hole with—a filling! A filling can be made of metal or a material which matches your tooth color.

When your appointment is finished, your tooth will be free from all the bacteria that were hurting it, the hole in your tooth will be filled, and you’ll be able to eat and bite and chew just like you could before. But what’s even better than treating a cavity? Preventing one!

How Can I Prevent Cavities?

There are lots of ways to get a cavity. Sometimes it’s caused by what people do, like eating lots of the foods which cavity-causing bacteria love. Sometimes, a cavity is caused by what people don’t do, like not brushing and flossing enough. And some people get cavities even with careful brushing and a healthy diet, so they might need extra help to protect their teeth.

Here are three very good ways to help stop cavities before they ever start:

• Don’t Feed the Bacteria!

The bacteria in plaque like sugars and starches because these foods are the easiest for them to use. And when they get more food, they make more acids. Desserts and sodas, soft breads and chips, and sugary cereals—these foods make tasty meals for bacteria and they stick to your teeth. Eating a balanced diet without too many sugary and starchy treats means fewer acids—and fewer cavities!

• Brush and Floss

Brushing at least twice a day helps get rid of the sticky plaque holding those cavity-causing bacteria. Flossing helps remove plaque where your brush has a hard time reaching, like the spaces between your teeth. Your dentist and hygienist can show you the very best ways to brush and floss to get rid of the most plaque.

• Cavity-Fighting Treatments

Your dentist can also treat your teeth to help keep cavities from ever starting, especially if you’re someone who gets cavities more easily. Professional cleanings at our Vorhees dental office and dental sealants are two ways to protect teeth from plaque and bacteria. Your dentist will have some ideas just for you.

Together, you and your dentist make a powerful cavity-fighting team. If you have any questions about keeping your teeth their healthiest, your dentist has the answers!

Is this a trick question? After all, you and your family probably already know quite a lot about cavities:

• It all begins when bacteria-filled plaque sticks to teeth and starts to attack enamel. How?
• Because the bacteria in plaque use the sugars and other foods we eat to produce acids.
• These acids gradually weaken teeth by dissolving minerals that help make up our enamel (a process called demineralization).
• Over time, a hole, or cavity, develops in the tooth surface.
• Left untreated, bacterial decay can spread to the inside of the tooth, creating a more serious cavity.

Drs. Paul Pasternack, Chara Pasternack, and Christine Biondi might discover an unexpected cavity at a regularly scheduled dental exam at our Vorhees office, but there are also some symptoms that should have you calling for an appointment. A cavity can cause sensitivity when eating something hot or cold, or it can be painful, or you might even notice visible discoloration or damage to the tooth surface.

So, if your child has any of these symptoms, it’s a cavity, right? It might be—but it might not. Sometimes, because the symptoms are similar, what we suspect is a cavity is really enamel erosion.

The bacteria-created acids weaken enamel. But it’s not just bacteria that subject our teeth to acids. Acidic foods are one of the leading causes of tooth erosion.

And while we expect damage from a lifetime of acidic foods and beverages to catch up with us as we age, the fact is that erosion is becoming a problem even for young children. How is this possible? Let’s look at some food chemistry.

Our normal saliva pH level is around a 7, which is neutral. Any number lower is acidic; any number higher is alkaline. Acidic foods have a low pH (the pH of lemon juice, for example, measures between 2 and 3), and can reduce our normal, neutral pH level. When saliva pH levels drop to 5.5 or lower, tooth enamel starts to demineralize, just as it does when exposed to the acids from oral bacteria.

Regularly snacking on citrus and other acidic fruits, fruit juices, flavored drinks, sour candies, and other acidic foods can cause enamel erosion. Especially erosive are sports drinks, energy drinks, and colas, because they contain some combination of citric acid, phosphoric acid and/or carbonation.

So, when might you suspect enamel erosion? Your child might be sensitive to hot or cold foods, or feel pain, or even have noticeable enamel loss or pitting. Even though these symptoms may not have been caused by plaque and bacteria, acidic erosion from our diets leaves weakened enamel just as vulnerable to cavities and decay.

How to avoid erosion?

• Serve acidic foods sparingly, or as part of a meal. This helps our saliva pH stay in the neutral zone.
• Balance acidic foods with low-acid choices to neutralize acids and restore a normal pH balance. For example, mix those acidic berries with a banana.
• Use a straw! These are not only fun, but this simple solution keeps erosive drinks from bathing young teeth in acids.
• Encourage your child to drink water instead of an acidic beverage, or drink it afterward to rinse acids away. The pH of pure water? A perfect, neutral 7. And by using tap water instead of bottled water, you’ll be providing fluoride, which helps strengthen enamel.
• What about brushing right after eating or drinking something acidic? Ask Drs. Paul Pasternack, Chara Pasternack, and Christine Biondi if your child should rush for the brush. We may recommend waiting 30 minutes or so after an acidic treat to give the teeth time to remineralize. Otherwise, brushing might cause more wear and tear on enamel.
• Finally, while foods are often the source of acid erosion, medical conditions can cause erosion as well. Talk to us about ways to minimize erosion while addressing these medical needs.

Be proactive. Ask your Drs. Paul Pasternack, Chara Pasternack, and Christine Biondi about healthy drinks and snacks for healthy teeth. Make sure to keep on top of brushing and flossing, and stick with fluoride toothpastes. And visit our Vorhees office regularly for exams and cleanings.

There’s really no trick to it—preventing enamel erosion helps keep your child’s teeth structurally strong and cavity-free for a lifetime of beautiful and healthy adult smiles.

All Hallows' Eve, more commonly known as Halloween, is a yearly event celebrated on October 31, and one that is anticipated by the young and young at heart all over the world. Some scholars claim that Halloween originated from Celtic festivals that honored the dead or that celebrated the harvest, while others doubt that there's any connection at all to Samhain (a Gaelic harvest festival.) Regardless of its origin, our team at the Pediatric Dentistry office of Drs. Paul Pasternack, Chara Pasternack, and Christine Biondi hopes that Halloween is fun and enjoyed by all of our awesome patients!

Trick or treat?

In North America, Halloween is predominantly celebrated by children who dress up in costumes, which range from scary to cute, who then go around the neighborhood knocking on doors asking "trick or treat", and they are given candy in return. Trick-or-treating is a time honored tradition, and though many parents groan at the pounds and pounds of candy collected by youngsters and fear for the health of their teeth, there are a few things you can do to help their teeth stay in great shape until the candy is gone:

• Limit the amount of candy they can consume each day
• Have them brush their teeth after eating candy
• Avoid hard, chewy candies as they can stick in hard to brush places
• Keep candy out of sight to reduce temptation
• Don't buy candy too far in advance to limit pre-Halloween consumption
• Help or encourage your children to floss

Halloween Fun

Halloween isn't just about gorging on candy; there are other events associated with this festive day including carving jack-o'-lanterns, painting pumpkins, decorating sugar cookies, bobbing for apples, going to haunted houses, or just curling up on the couch with a bowl full of popcorn and watching some classic, scary movies.

Halloween Around the World

Some countries, like Australia, frown upon Halloween, claiming it is an American event and not based in Australian culture, while others like Italy have embraced the fun and celebrate much as Canadians and Americans do. Mexicans have been celebrating this fun day since around 1960, and it marks the beginning of the Day of the Dead festival. Some countries in Europe have come late to the party, but since the 1990s, countries like Sweden, Norway, and Germany have started celebrating Halloween as well, and finding children in costumes or having ghosts hanging in windows has become commonplace.

Halloween is about fun; stepping outside our normal lives and donning a costume or gathering with friends to knock on doors and ask for candy is as much a part of our culture as hot dogs and barbecue on Labor Day. Have a safe and happy Halloween from the team at Pasternack Pediatric Dental!