Watching children smile makes everything worthwhile.
What is the importance of milk teeth?
Milk teeth are important as they have following functions :
- Chewing : For good health and nourishment children need healthy teeth for chewing.
- Smile : smile is a way one expresses happiness. And children are no exception. A smile boosts one’s confidence.
- Speech : speech is dependent on upper front teeth. Lack of good front teeth hampers speech ability during a growing age.
- Space maintenance: Milk teeth act as space maintainers for permanent teeth. Milk teeth fall off once the permanent ones are ready to erupt.
A child’s first visit should be as soon as the first tooth erupts.
It is best to get your child along with you for your own dental appointment. This makes the child comfortable in a dental clinic setting. This helps them to get comfortable with the environment for their future dental appointments.
There are many paediatric dental problems which if intervened at the right time prove to be beneficial to prevent bigger issues in the future.
Dental problems like malocclusion can be prevented by removing over retained milk teeth at the right age. Simple malocclusions can be corrected with a simple removable orthodontic plate.
This is possible only if your child has a routine dental check up done every 6 months.
Dental treatments for children carried out are mainly
- Dental fillings – if dental caries (decay) is detected at the right time, it can be cleaned and filled with dental filling material.
- Root canal treatment – dental decay which has reached pulp tissue needs root canal treatment.
- Extraction – sometimes, it is not possible to save a tooth – it needs to be removed.
- Space maintainer – milk teeth act as natural space maintainers for permanent teeth. In case of early removal of milk teeth, the space created needs to be maintained with a space maintainer.
- Dental varnish – Dental decay can be prevented by applying fluoride varnish.
- Dental sealants – Dental (fissure) sealants are similar to tooth colored composite material which are filled in deep grooves and pits on back teeth, reducing the possibility of dental decay.
- Removable orthodontic treatment – simple orthodontic problems can be corrected with a simple removable orthodontic plate. This is possible only during the growing age. Growing age is used to our advantage to get the desired results.
- Interceptive dental treatment – at times, a milk tooth may stay longer in the mouth than required. This creates problems like crowded teeth in the future. This can be prevented by interceptive dental treatment like removal of the over retained milk tooth. It is possible only with regular six monthly dental visits.