My daughter broke two of her baby teeth. She is six years old and the two baby molars that are broken had pretty bad decay and cavities on them. Our dentist has told us that the best thing to do is to have them removed as soon as possible. Is this the proper treatment for a child of her age?
– Linda in Iowa
Linda,
When an adult’s tooth is compromised with infection, a root canal treatment is performed. It’s a little different for a baby tooth. Root canals don’t work so well for baby molars, so that is why your dentist is recommending tooth extractions. What happens when a tooth is infected is that the infection can spread into the jawbone and may cause problems with the permanent teeth that are still in the process of developing.
Another thing worth mentioning is that space maintainers need to be placed in the spaces after the baby teeth are removed. This is very important to avoid serious problems down the road with your daughter’s permanent teeth. At six years of age, the permanent molars will be erupting very soon if they haven’t begun to already. If there is a gap left where the baby molars were, then the surrounding teeth may drift or block out the new permanent premolars causing them to come in crooked or not at all. There are situations where space maintainers may not be needed, but generally speaking if the patient is under twelve and the teeth that are removed are molars, space maintainers should be placed. If your dentist hasn’t discussed this with you, then you may want to find another dentist to take care of this for you.
This post is sponsored by Baton Rouge dentist Sherwood Dental Care.
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