Dental Treatment with Anesthetics, Safe For Pregnant Women

Filed in archive Medical Issues on June 18, 2008

Photo courtesy of iStockphoto, bojan fatur

In a previous entry, I've already emphasized th importance of dental health during pregnancy. In addition to possibly resulting to pregnancy Gingivitis, poor dental health have also been linked to pregnancy diabetes and premature birth. Should you need dental work done during your pregnancy, don't worry, most routine procedures are generally safe for you and your baby. In fact, a recent study showed that pregnant women safely undergo essential dental treatment and receive topical and local anesthetics at 13 to 21 weeks gestation.

The researchers randomly assigned 823 pregnant women with periodontitis to receive scaling and root planing, either at 13 to 21 weeks' gestation or up to three months after delivery. (Experts recommend that pregnant women defer elective care before eight weeks' gestation and during late pregnancy.) The researchers determined that 483 of these women also needed essential dental treatment. Three hundred fifty-one of the women completed all recommended treatment.

The researchers then monitored the women for "adverse outcomes" - 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, hospitalizations for any other reason, fetal or congenital anomalies and neonatal deaths). The results:

The results of the study 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," the authors write. "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."