Teenager teeth whitening

[Wallace09]

Hello, I have two teen-aged daughters who would like their teeth whitened. Their teeth are fine but they insist on using whitening strips and other whitening aids. I also have a 7 year old daughter who has began to catch on and uses their products as well.

I'm afraid of these products damaging their teeth before they even become adults. Is this safe for children? At what age should you consider using whitening products? Also are the whitening toothpastes dangerous to children as well?

[Dr Vahid Motahar]

Hi,

Thank you for your question.

At Pearl Dental Clinic we do not provide whitening treatment to any patients younger than 18 years. In some cases it may be possible to use only the home whitening option (which one has 100% control over it) and using very low concentrations of the whitening gel.
The reason for this is that young teeth have very large pulps and the whitening gels can damage their pulps resulting in the nerve dying with the consequence of need for root canal treatment and so on. Thus one has to be very aware and careful with whitening the teeth in very young patients.