The Importance of Keeping Children's Teeth Healthy

Did you know that many children do not lose all their baby teeth until they are about 10 or 11 years old? And that the first adult tooth to erupt is when they are around 6 years old? 

Look at the chart below, you can see that the presence of many baby teeth is crucial to keep adult teeth erupting in the right place, as mother nature has intended. When a child loses a baby tooth too soon, spaces may be lost, and adult teeth coming in at the wrong place. Sometimes, the bite can become quite complicated that will require many years of braces to correct. 

Source: Ash, M. Wheeler's Dental Anatomy Physiology and Occlusion 7th ed W.B.Saunders

Imagine a 5 years old child who has a toothache, and it is his first dental visit to the dentist. To the dentist's disappointment, the child has an abscessed baby tooth, let's say the upper 2nd baby molar that will require extraction. (In the above chart, the first blue tooth on the left of the upper arch at age 7 is the 2nd baby molar). What do you think will happen as a consequence for that early tooth loss? The adult molar will erupt and invade the space for the premolar tooth to erupt in its proper place!

When we take X-ray images of baby teeth and put on our big screen monitor, many kids get so excited to see their own adult teeth forming! Unfortunately, it wasn't the case here. This child came to us with a lot of pain and huge swelling for a few days! He had a big cavity in the baby tooth, which was not treated and became abscessed. It was not ready to come out yet, either on its own or for us to remove it.

Due to circumstance that the tooth could not be saved with baby root canal treatment, we took the tooth out. Care was taken not to damage the adult tooth underneath. Abscessed baby tooth can also damage the adult tooth underneath if it was not removed. 

Now what do you think will happen to the tooth (which is the adult molar) on the right side of the image? Will it tilt over and prevent that adult premolar tooth underneath to come out? So what can we do to prevent this from happening?

Keeping baby teeth healthy is very important for the health of adult teeth. Treating cavities early on to prevent abscess and the need to take out baby teeth is one way. However, the best way is to prevent cavities all together!