Corrine Rivera that her 7-year-old daughter needed a baby root canal at her routine checkup, Rivera didn’t understand that “baby” was describing the tooth, not the size of the procedure. She imagined it was like a baby ice cream cone — less than what an adult gets, just a little bit of a root canal. Rivera’s daughter had yet to have any dental interventions other than cleanings, so Rivera didn’t realize what she was in for.
Rivera remains skeptical that her daughter needed a root canal in the first place, and state and federal prosecutors, it turns out, later responded to allegations that other pulpotomy cases in that same dental practice had been medically unnecessary. In October 2022, Pediatric Dentistry of Albany and 12 affiliated clinics — all operated by pediatric dentist Barry L.
And according to experts who spoke to Undark, while some patients are likely to get more treatment than others, the main goal of pediatric dentistry is to promote oral hygiene, mediate pain, and keep baby teeth healthy until the adult teeth come in, said Donald Chi, a pediatric dentist and professor of oral health sciences at the University of Washington.