Pregnant women can safely undergo essential dental treatment and receive topical and local anesthetics at 13 to 21 weeks’ gestation, says a study published in the Journal of the American Dental Association (June 2008). Although obstetricians generally consider dental care safe for pregnant women, supporting clinical trial evidence has been lacking. To address this issue, researchers compared safety outcomes from the Obstetrics and Periodontal Therapy Trial: pregnant women received scaling and root planing (deep cleaning) and essential dental treatment (defined as treatment of moderate-to-severe cavities or fractured or abscessed teeth). They randomly assigned 823 pregnant women with periodontitis to receive treatment either at 13 to 21 weeks’ gestation or up to 3 months after delivery. (Experts recommend that pregnant women defer elective care before 8 weeks’ gestation and during late pregnancy.) The researchers determined that 483 of these women also needed essential dental treatment; 351 of the women completed all recommended treatment. Obstetric nurses reviewed medical records throughout the trial to monitor subjects for serious adverse events. The authors defined these events as pregnancies that ended in a nonlive birth and other adverse events that did not result in pregnancy termination (including hospitalizations for more than 24 hours because of labor pains or for any other reason, fetal or congenital anom-alies, and neonatal deaths). The authors wrote that the results showed that “periodontal treatment and essential dental treatment, administered at a time between 13 and 21 weeks’ gestation, did not significantly increase the risk of any adverse outcome evaluated. Use of topical and local anesthetics for scaling and root planing also was not associated with an increased risk of experiencing these adverse events and outcomes.” The team was led by Dr. Bryan Michalowicz, professor of periodontics, University of Minnesota School of Dentistry, Minneapolis.
(Source: American Dental Association news release, June 10, 2008)
