The spring football season kicks off this May and 60-plus Barsby football players will be equipped with custom-fit mouth guards, courtesy of Harbour City Dental Hygiene.
The clinic has adopted the student athletes at John Barsby Community School to help prevent dental and head injuries resulting from contact sports by providing custom fit mouth guards at no cost.
Rob Stevenson, head of the athletics program at John Barsby and Barsby Bulldogs coach, opened up his classroom on March 25 for the students to have impressions of their mouth made by the dental hygienists.
This is the first step in making a custom fit mouth guard.
The hygienists will then fabricate the mouth guards and the students will have them fitted this week during National Dental Hygienists Week, prior to their first training camp on April 21.
More than 30 per cent of all high school athletes report at least one dental injury and less than 10 per cent of knocked-out teeth are successfully re-implanted.
The cost of replacing that lost tooth can reach $5,000.
The easiest and most effective way to protect these athletes from injury is a custom fit mouth guard.
When it comes to sports equipment, mouth guards should be a priority.
With adequate separation of teeth, the risk of tooth fractures, chips and evulsions is significantly reduced and importantly, the occurrence and severity of a concussion is greatly decreased.
For more information on sports mouth guards, please visit www.harbourcity
dental.com.