Women’s Oral Health Through The Lifespan

Ira Lamster DDS, MMSc, Cherae Farmer-Dixon DDS, MSPH, MBA, FACD, FICD Dean, School of Dentistry Meharry Medical College, Susan Altman DNP, CNM, FACNM Program Director: Midwifery Program NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing

This webinar will review the general medical and oral health issues that are unique to girls, adolescent females and women across the lifecourse. The focus will be on puberty, pregnancy and menopause, with a review of special considerations for patients seen in the dental office. Topics include changes that occur in the oral cavity, as well as diagnostic and treatment considerations during each stage. In addition, special topics will be discussed, including domestic abuse and oral/facial trauma, and considerations for the patient who is being treated for a gynecological malignancy.

Additional Resources:

• Pharmacological Considerations
• Perinatal Dental Referral Form

• Be familiar with the physiological changes that accompany puberty, pregnancy and menopause, and the oral changes that can occur at each stage.
• Understand what diagnostic approaches (i.e. radiography) and specific treatments (i.e. preventive dental care) can and cannot be provided to patients during each stage.
• Recognize other conditions that girls, adolescent females and women may present with that require special awareness, and how each should be managed (i.e. oral/facial evidence of domestic abuse, oral manifestations of gynecological malignancies).