Why Baby Teeth Are Just As Important As Adult Teeth
Caring for your child’s teeth starting at a young age is important. Baby teeth need to be healthy to be able to help your child’s dental developmental skills early on in their life. Even though baby teeth end up falling out or being removed, they are the backbone to strong and healthy permanent teeth. At Pediatric Dentistry of Central Iowa, we have five reasons to share why the health of baby teeth matter just as much as adult teeth!
Alignment of Permanent Teeth
Baby teeth serve as a guide to permanent teeth to grow in when it’s time. When decayed baby teeth fall out or are removed from your child’s mouth at a young age, they can cause alignment issues with the rest of their teeth. With that being said, if your child loses a decayed tooth at a very young age, the teeth around it will start to cave in and shift, which can block the space for the adult tooth to grow in. This can lead to crooked teeth or deficiencies with adult teeth growing in properly.
Proper Nutrition and Eating Habits
Not cleaning baby teeth can lead to cavities from foods your child eats, ultimately causing decay. These cavities can cause pain in teeth when eating which can change your child’s eating habits negatively. This can lead children not chewing their food all the way or lead to them not wanting to eat at all, which creates nutritional deficiencies. Since baby teeth are close to the roots in your child’s mouth, these cavities left untreated can cause severe diseases that can spread all throughout the body.
Facial Muscle Development
Chewing food helps grow the muscles around your child’s face that develop their facial structure. Teeth that are not taken care of that lead to a hard time eating because of tooth pain, can cause abnormal facial muscle development. The pain they are going through may make it uncomfortable or painful to chew properly, which will not allow proper muscle building in their face.
Baby teeth play an extremely large role in speech development as they are learning how to talk. Keeping care of these teeth can provide the correct alignment in their mouths to help them speak. Overall, the correct alignment will help them with pronounciation of their words, and make them more understandable from these good speech habits and techniques. Not caring for your child’s teeth can lead to speech impediments and other speaking problems that can be hard for them to overcome.
Confidence at a Young Age
Cosmetic features with healthy teeth can affect your child’s self esteem and social life. Tooth pain can cause distractions and make your child unfocus at school. Decaying teeth can also lead to bad breath that can interfere with social interactions your child may encounter. Having a healthy and bright smile can boost up self esteem and confidence to your child’s life compared to rotting unhealthy smiles.
Schedule Your Child’s Appointment
Caring for baby teeth in your child’s mouth will lead to many health benefits regarding their future permanent teeth growth. If you are interested in bringing your child in for a consultation and dental analysis, fill out our new patient form and book an appointment with one of our friendly staff members at either our Des Moines or Ankeny location. We look forward to seeing you soon!