Pediatric Tooth Extraction Aftercare

Remove gauze

• If your child allows, maintain firm pressure on the gauze over the surgical area for about 30 minutes. After this time, remove and dispose of the gauze, then replace it with fresh gauze directly over the surgical area as needed for active bleeding. Repeat this process until the bleeding subsides.
• Note that most children tend to spit the gauze out after surgery. Baby teeth tend to have minimal bleeding so do not panic if this happens!

Avoid touching the extraction site

• We know this is easier said than done! Just do your best to help your little one avoid touching their mouths
• If your child has stiches, they will come out on their own in about 1 week. Sometimes kiddos pull them out sooner. If that happens, don’t panic! It happens a lot, and we won’t need to replace them.

Take over the counter pain medication

• We recommend taking over the counter pain medication such as ibuprofen or tylenol prior to the local anesthetic wearing off. If a stronger pain medication was prescribed, this can be taken to supplement over the counter medicines.

Avoid taking medications on an empty stomach

Restrict activities

• Restrict activities for the remainder of the day of surgery.
• Your child may resume activities as normal starting the day after surgery

What to eat?

• While we recommend soft foods for the first couple of days (ice cream, popsicles, pudding, jell-o, mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, etc.), we know kids can be picky eaters. Ultimately, they can eat what they are comfortable eating, but just try to avoid chips, nuts, popcorn for the first few days.