Babies are incredible! Full of life, wonder, excitement and energy and after a little while, little baby teeth. Those little teeth help them (as they would help anyone else) with the biting and chewing of food. Some people feel that the maintenance of their baby’s teeth may not be extremely important as those teeth will fall out and be replaced by permanent adult teeth, however this couldn’t be further from the truth.
“One of the most common questions I get from parents is, ‘why should I keep baby teeth because they are going to fall out anyway?’” Dr. Fulcher said. “In that case, the space that’s being held by those baby teeth is important to allow for the permanent tooth to come in. So, premature loss of baby teeth can allow for overcrowding, where your other teeth will start to drift into those spaces and block out the permanent teeth from coming in. For parents with small children, teaching them to brush on their own can be a bit daunting. Dr. Fulcher says if a child brushes twice a day, then have the child brush once a day on their own with adult supervision and have the parent bush the second time.”
Make sure you help your children preserve their baby teeth in order for the best adult dental development. Contact your Ottawa dentist for the best advice and practices on helping to keep your children’s teeth as clean as possible.
