Dental Care - Choosing a Toothpaste

Hello, I am Dr. Kelly again with Kelly Dentistry, and we are talking about maintaining good oral hygiene. We have already talked about toothbrushes, now were going to talk about toothpaste. There are different types of toothpaste out there, and there are ones with ADA seals and one without ADA seals. You want something that has a seal on it with American Dental Association, the ADA seal.

Then you are more likely to get a good toothpaste, and you get one with fluoride in it so it will be beneficial to you. You can get different kinds of taste. You can get ones for little kids that are bubble gum flavor, you can get ones for adults which are mint, regular, cinnamon flavors. There are different types also out there such as tartar control and cavity protection and total, and those are all decent, theyre all good for whatever your needs may be. There is also a whitening toothpaste out there.

Now, my preference is that I do not like kids below the age of 17 to use whitening toothpaste because it has peroxide in it, so I think it would be good if you wait till youre above 17 years old. Then we have also a demonstration with the amount of toothpaste to use. For kids age two and older or adults, you want to use a pea size amount of toothpaste. Then for kids who are age two and under, you want to make sure that you use only water on the toothbrush, because you do not want them to swallow the fluoride which they have a tendency to do at that age, and then its very harmful to them. For babies you can just use a damp washcloth and wipe their gums with that. You want to do this either before or after meals, or for babies you want to make sure after you give them formula. Now that we have talked about toothpaste, we can go on to talk about mouth rinses.