The dental management of pregnant patients requires special attention. Dentists, for example, may delay certain elective procedures so that they coincide with the periods of pregnancy which are devoted to maturation versus organogenesis. At other times, the dental care professionals need to alter their normal pharmacological armamentarium to address the patients’ needs versus the foetal demands. Applying the basics of preventive dentistry at the primary level will broaden the scope of the prenatal care. Dentists should encourage all the patients of the childbearing ages to seek oral health counseling and examinations as soon as they learn that they are pregnant.
This article has reviewed some of the physiologic changes and the oral pathologies which are associated with pregnancy, and how these alterations can affect the dental care of the patient.