Chesterfield mom says daughter distraught after local dentist uses little-known 'hand over mouth' te
Chesterfield mom says daughter distraught after local dentist uses little-known ‘hand over mouth’ technique
A Chesterfield mom said her young daughter’s latest dental visit was disturbing. Tracy Sikes said she was surprised to learn some dentists use a little-known technique to calm a hysterical child down during a procedure called “hand over mouth.”
The practice is no longer taught in local dental schools, frowned upon by some leading dental groups and even considered abusive by some dentists. Still, it is considered an acceptable practice in Virginia.
Sikes 9-year-old-daughter Emily had an appointment at Pediatric Dentistry & Orthodontics of Virginia on Hull Street Road to cap a molar. Sikes said her daughter left the dentist’s office distraught, swollen and in pain.
“She was just crying,” Sikes said. “She was extremely upset.”
The mother admits dental work is sometimes uncomfortable and scary for children. So, she pressed her daughter in hopes of understanding more about what happened during the visit.
Sikes said, “She said that she was crying and screaming because it hurt when he was drilling.”
However, what her daughter told her next about how the dentist, Dr. Steven Lubbe, handled her pain and fear left mom stunned.
“She told me that the dentist clamped his hand over her mouth and leaned down and told her to stop crying,” Sikes said. “When I hear that an adult man has put his hand over my daughter’s mouth when she is in pain and upset, of course, that brings out the mamma bear.”
https://www.wric.com/news/taking-action/mom-says-daughter-distraught-after-local-dentist-uses-little-known-hand-over-mouth-technique/
__________________________________________________________________________
Read on, it gets worse. Shit like this is why a lot of us hate dentists even as adults.
= new reply since forum marked as read
but sometimes parents don't get a choice in who a child sees. Medicaid dentists are an example. My daughter encountered this with a couple of the stepkids--they were assigned to a dentist they hated but they didn't get a choice about it, and she wasn't allowed in the room. Period. Fortunately one of them is extremely (and I do mean extremely!) outspoken and she would raise hell if anyone tried something like this with her, even at the age of 9. I wonder if this dentist was a Medicaid assignment.
The point of the article, however, is that the dentist was using an outmoded and discredited technique on the girl that he shouldn't have been using. A little nitrous oxide and novocaine would have been the proper option, not restraining and clamping a hand over the child's mouth. That was just cruelty. I had a childhood dentist who didn't believe in numbing kids ("They're afraid of needles and it would hurt"
and as a result I still have dental phobia. It takes everything I have to visit the dentist, even one I trust.