In agony: Dentistry and 26 weeks pregnant

[parapluiepliant]

Hi - are there any dentists who can advise?
Currently in agony - gum has receded on door above a baby tooth which has never fallen out.
I've noticed a horrid brown hole and decay in the root which is agony.

After bank holiday I'll see the dentist but don't want to have any treatment in living anaesthetic because of the baby.
Can anyone advise? Am worried they're going to want to extract tooth (no big tooth underneath it)

Hi parapluiepliant,

I'm a dentist and although it's impossible for me to say what treatment you need or whether the tooth will need to be extracted, I just wanted to give a bit of reassurance. The levels of local anaesthetic used for dental treatment is very low, and so generally considered very safe within pregnancy.

It's still important that you let your dentist know that you are pregnant when you go, but don't let this put you off having treatment. I hope everything gets sorted and you are out of pain soon

Hi parapluiepliant,

I'm also a dentist, and I can second that anaesthetics are very safe for pregnant women. I see many pregnant women, some of them need treatment, some even antibiotics, so these things are commonly done in dentistry as they are widely accepted safe for mum and baby.

As dilly said, you still do need to let your dentist know you are expecting. Good luck!

Thanks ladies for the advice
It's re-assured me slightly. I'll see what he says as it's probably unwise to wait another 3 months. I just don't like the idea of anaethetising my baby too.
Do you find many pregnant women take up anaesthetic? I was considering going for treatment without anaesthetic!

As the above posts said anaesthetic can be given in pregnancy and it is certainly safer than leaving infection untreated.

I had to have a broken and infected filling removed at around the same time in my pregnancy. I was told by my dentist that the local anaesthetic they use is very safe, the reason it only numbs the area not all of you is that it doesn't circulate on your bloodstream and so has very little, if any, impact on the baby. I also had antibiotics and codine (prescribed by the Dr and carefully monitored) at the same time. There's no way I could have left it. My DD is now 9 weeks old and perfect (the tooth however is still playing up and I have to go back to the dentist for more work - but that's unrelated!)
Don't stay in pain OP. The dentist will be very qualified to treat you whilst pregnant and won't carry out any treatment that they don't believe to be safe.