oral sedation

[Peony]

DD has 4 cavities that just keep getting larger. We've held off on getting them fixed as long as possible, but it needs to be done now. DD is 3.75 years old, the cavities are all in seperate areas of her mouth. The only option we have is do to oral sedation in the dentist's office. DD fell last month and injured her front teeth enough that we had to extract them. The accident is still very fresh in her mind, she did great then, but is very fearful now. I'm in a extremely rural area, I'm already driving 60+ miles to go to a pediatric dentist, there are no other options after him, unless I want to drive for 4 hours one way. Anyway, this dentist does not allow parents in the treatment room after the sedation. DD will wait in the waiting room with us for an hour while the meds kick in and then they will come to get her, and bring her back out to the waiting room when she is finished. I am very uncomfortable with this. DD rarely leaves my side, she has never been in a situation where I have left her with strangers. I know their reasoning behind it, I'm an RN, I was always taught that the child must be seperated from the parents, but I don't believe that. I know the treatment rooms are very small, but I believe that dd would handle anything much better if her mom was near her. What has your experiene with oral sedation been? I'm just looking to see how other dc and offices handle it.

[Cassandra M.]

Hi, We have dealth with oral sedation with our 3 yr old and 5 yr old.

The dentist let us be with our children though we had to ask him specifically...the staff was saying "no."

If you explain to him that you promise to remain calm, but really feel you need to be there with your child, and that your child will do better with you there, he might make an exception to the rule.

Good luck!!

[sarahariz]

I just took dd age 26 mo to the dentist and they want to do CS (concious sedation) on her too. They also said I could not come back there during the procedure, because they find kids listen to them better when the mother isn't there.

As I thought about that amore, I remembered that the dentist made essentially no effort to connect with her before he told me to lean her back into his lap so he could look at her teeth (during the initial exam). If that's the way he is with me there, how will he be without me there?? As I thought about that more, I got really concerned. Perhaps she would listen better because she is scared-is that a good reason to have her in there alone? The more I think about it, the more I want to look into other options-GA or doing nothing. Is all this really necessary?

[Peony]

I do feel comfortable with this dentist. DD has seen him several times and he has always talked alot to her and tried to make a connection. DD fell last month and pushed 3 of her teeth back, we weren't able to go to this dentist because of the drive and a screaming child, the dentist we went to consulted with him. We ended up having to pull 2 of dd's teeth, they were just too damaged. The pediatric dentist called me at home personally to check on dd later and see how she was doing. I can tell that he does really care.

I called his office yesterday and said I said questions about the procedure and he called me back within 30 minutes. I talked with him at length, he was very straightforward with me. He'd rather not do the work then have the parent in the room, no exceptions. Apparently he had allowed parents in the past and had several bad incidents with parents really freaking out. He did agree to allow me to come back with dd, and stay and until she is settled, I can wait in the room right next door but not in the actual room. He will not work if the child is upset and will not calm down, he admited that he doesn't have a really high sucess rate because of that. I liked to hear that, I was very worried that dd would be really upset and the work would continue. He doesn't believe in papoose boards, so if dd is not cooperative then nothing will be done about it. I will be right next door so I will be able to hear everything that is going on. It's not an ideal situation, I would prefer to remain in the room, but since I'm in such a rural area I have no other options, and I feel comfortable that if dd is not handling it then she isn't going to be forced, that was a major concern of mine.