Dental care throughout pregnancy: what a dentist must know.

Pregnancy is a unique period in a woman's lifetime. Good oral health during pregnancy is important to the overall health of both the expectant mother and her baby. Oral health assessment should be part of comprehensive prenatal care for all women and every general medical practitioner and obstetrician should consider referral of a newly pregnant woman to a dentist as routine. Unfortunately, there may be times when pregnant women, obstetricians and-on occasional-dentists are sceptical of dental care during pregnancy owing to prejudices about the safety of dental treatment, resulting in delay of the dental treatment. The aim of this paper is to review the literature for evidence-based answers with regard to the frequent dilemmas of dentists concerning dental treatment of pregnant women. The search was performed using the PubMed database and systematic reviews and original articles (clinical and experimental studies) as well as guidelines produced by scientific organisations. From this review it can be concluded that most dental work is safe during pregnancy. Dentists and health agencies should provide and distribute information to women about the importance of maintaining oral health during pregnancy.

Dental management of patients before and after renal transplantation.

The number of patients who are long-term survivors of renal transplantation increases rapidly, and proportionally increases the demand of quality dental care for this group of patients. All the transplant patients are on potent immunosupressants and also some of them may suffer from other systemic diseases, so their dental management is a challenge for any dentist. This article is an update of the current relevant literature and is aimed to summarize the key points of dental care for renal transplant patients, since no specific guidelines exist. The research for relevant references took place by using Pubmed database, as well as information published by accredited medical societies and health services both in Greece and abroad.