IV Sedation in Our Office

For some children, lighter sedation isn't the right fit. When there's extensive treatment to complete, when a child is very young or has significant medical or developmental needs, or when other approaches haven't worked, sleep dentistry is often the kindest and safest path. Your child sleeps through the entire appointment and wakes with no memory of it. Everything gets done in one visit, in a place they already know, instead of across many appointments they'd have to steel themselves for. We know this is the option parents worry about most. Here's exactly what's involved.

When we recommend it

  • Extensive treatment that would otherwise take many separate visits
  • Young children with significant decay who can't cooperate for the care they need
  • Children with special healthcare needs, or medical and developmental conditions that make awake treatment unrealistic
  • Severe dental anxiety that hasn't responded to nitrous or oral sedation
  • Surgical procedures better completed while a child is fully asleep

This is always a shared decision. We'll walk you through why we think it's right, what the alternatives are, and what happens if you'd rather wait.


Right here in our office, for a Qualified Patient — with a dental anesthesiologist

Your child's IV sedation happens in our Chandler office, not at a hospital or surgical center. For families, that usually means a shorter day, a familiar building, and a team your child has already met.

The anesthesia itself is provided by a dental anesthesiologist — a doctor with specialist training in anesthesia for dental patients, and specifically for children. They are not doing the dental work. Their only job that day is your child: giving the anesthesia, watching the monitors, and managing every aspect of your child's breathing and comfort from start to finish.

That separation matters. Dr. Mindi can focus entirely on the dentistry because someone equally qualified is focused entirely on your child.

Not every child is a candidate for in-office IV sedation. If your child's medical history means a hospital setting would be safer, we'll tell you plainly and help arrange it.


Before the appointment

The consultation and health review

All IV Sedation patients of Bloom Pediatric Dentistry are required to have a health and physical form filled out with their primary care doctor - and the form returned a minimum two weeks prior to surgery

Dr Mindi will go through your child's complete medical history first: conditions, past surgeries, any family history of trouble with anesthesia, and every medication, vitamin, and supplement they take.

The dental anesthesiologist reviews all of it before the day of treatment and will speak with you about your child specifically. If anything in that review suggests a different setting would be safer, we will inform you and refer you to a provider who sees children at Phoenix Children’s Hospital

Intravenous (IV) Sedation

We'll call you the day before

Someone from our team will call to go through the preoperative instructions with you out loud — and we need to actually reach you, not leave a message. Please make sure we have a number where you'll pick up. If we can't speak with you, we may need to reschedule and any patient investment will have to be repaid to the office.


Fasting: nothing to eat or drink for 8 hours

This is the most important instruction on this page, and there is no flexibility in it.

No food and no drinks — including water, milk, and juice — for the 8 hours before the appointment. For most families that means nothing after midnight. No gum, no candy, no mints.

An empty stomach is what makes anesthesia safe. If there's food or liquid in the stomach, it can come back up and enter the lungs while your child is asleep. That's a serious complication, and preventing it is the whole reason for the rule.

Do not brush their teeth the morning of

Remove all temptations from the car - check car seats and cracks - when kids are hungry they will search for something to eat or drink

If your child eats or drinks anything inside that window, call us before you leave home. We won't be annoyed and there's nothing to apologize for — but we will reschedule, because proceeding wouldn't be safe.


Everything else

  • Call if your child is sick. Fever, cough, congestion, or wheezing in the days beforehand affects the airway under anesthesia. Tell us rather than hoping it clears.
  • Loose, comfortable clothing, short sleeves, no jewelry.
  • Bring a comfort item — something to hold before, and to wake up with after.
  • Bring two adults if you can. One to drive, one to sit with your child on the way home. This one genuinely helps.
  • Clear the whole day, and plan a quiet one after.
  • Bring your insurance information and any paperwork we've asked for.

The day itself

You'll be with your child beforehand while they're settled and prepared. Once all our questions have been answered by Dr Mind and the anesthesiologist, we will escort your child to the operating room while you are escorted to the lobby. 

Once your child is under, we complete all the planned treatment in one session. Because they aren't moving or distressed, we can work thoroughly and efficiently — often finishing in a fraction of the chair time the same work would take awake.

Throughout, the dental anesthesiologist continuously monitors heart rate, blood oxygen, blood pressure, breathing, and temperature, with full emergency equipment and medications immediately at hand. Our clinical team maintains current BLS and PALS certification and trains regularly on pediatric emergencies.

We'll bring you to your child as they're waking up.


Waking up and going home

Coming out of anesthesia looks different than most parents expect, so it helps to know in advance.

Many children are disoriented, weepy, or outright upset for a while as they wake. This is normal, it is not pain, and it passes. Some are unsteady. Some feel queasy. Some fall straight back asleep in the car. None of that means anything went wrong.

We keep your child with us until they're fully stable, and you'll go home with written instructions.


At home

  • An adult stays with your child all day. Not alone, not with a sibling. Coordination and judgment lag well behind alertness.
  • Clear liquids first, then soft foods as they tolerate them. Don't rush it.
  • Quiet activity only. No stairs unsupervised, no bikes, no trampolines, no swimming, no sports. It's a couch and movie sort of day.
  • Expect a sore mouth, and possibly a scratchy throat. We'll give you specific pain relief instructions dosed for your child's weight before you leave.
  • Some oozing is normal if teeth were removed, and settles within a few hours.
  • Most children are themselves again by the evening.

Call us right away if

  • Your child is very hard to rouse, or won't stay awake
  • Breathing is noisy, labored, or slow
  • Vomiting won't stop, or they can't keep fluids down for several hours
  • There's a fever
  • Bleeding doesn't settle with gentle pressure
  • Pain isn't controlled by what we've recommended
  • Anything just feels wrong — trust that instinct and call

Bloom Pediatric Dentistry: 480-867-7355

In an emergency — trouble breathing, unresponsiveness, a seizure — call 911 first.

The question parents ask us most

Many parents have read something about anesthesia and young children's brain development, and they want to know what we think. It's a fair question and it deserves a straight answer.

The FDA has advised that repeated or lengthy anesthesia in children under three may affect the developing brain, and that has understandably worried families. What's also true is that untreated decay in a small child is not a neutral alternative — it causes pain, infection, missed school, difficulty eating and sleeping, and damage to the permanent teeth forming underneath.

So it's a weighing, not a simple answer. We take it seriously in both directions: we don't recommend sleep dentistry for convenience, and we don't leave significant disease untreated to avoid a difficult conversation.

If this is on your mind, please raise it at the consultation. We'd rather talk it through properly than have you deciding from a webpage.

Let's talk it through

This is a big decision. Come in, ask us everything, and take the time you need.

Call Bloom Pediatric Dentistry in Chandler to schedule a consultation: 480-867-7355