Why Treat Baby Teeth When They Are Only Going To Fall Out Anyway?

One of the most frustrating and difficult clinical situations is when a child loses their last deciduous (baby) molar tooth. These are the teeth that hold the adult molar (that comes in when they are 6-7 years old), in position so that all subsequent adult teeth erupt within their proper place.

When these baby molars are lost, the adult 6-year molars drift forwards and cause the adult premolar teeth (which normally erupt between the age of 10 to 12) to become impacted under them.

This can cause major complications, such as the damage and loss of adult teeth, or the adult teeth not meshing together properly.

The result is often poor chewing ability and excessive wear of the adult teeth. And once the teeth are impacted, the surgery to remove them can be tricky, to say the least. A most unfortunate and expensive consequence of losing ‘just a baby tooth’.

Of course there are ways to prevent this from happening and in my next blog post I will give some advice to parents in caring for their children’s precious teeth.

Keep smiling!

Darryl Marsh