If your child has a tooth (or several teeth) that are damaged or worn down, you may have considered whether crowns for those baby teeth are a good idea.
It’s understandable to be confused about crowns for baby teeth. “Won’t they just fall out soon on their own?” You might wonder.
For the most part, there are a couple questions that determine the viability of a crown when it comes to baby teeth:
- How young is the child and which tooth is it?
- Are there adult teeth near the problem tooth?
We’ll unpack both of these questions below.
Your child’s age, and which tooth has the issue will affect the viability of crowns for baby teeth.
For most kids, roughly 8 baby teeth usually have fallen out by age 8. By age 12, they’ll usually have lost an additional 12 baby teeth. Depending on your child’s age, it may be simpler to pull the tooth and allow the adult tooth underneath to sprout when it’s ready.
However, it’s important to note that the adult teeth will sprout when they are ready, and not necessarily when there isn’t a baby tooth on top. If your pediatric dentist pulls a baby tooth before it was ready to fall out, your child may have a gap where there is no longer a tooth for some time.
If your child is young enough that the problem baby tooth will likely be around for a few more years, using a crown can make more sense to preserve chewing surface without a gap.
Are there a few problem teeth clustered together?
Though pulling damaged baby teeth may seem like the simpler option in a lot of cases, if there are several damaged teeth near each other that can create a bad experience for your child.
As an anecdotal example, we once had a patient whose mother opted to go that route and pull several teeth at once that were next to each other.
That ended up meaning that the child had a rather large gap in his mouth that created difficulty chewing.
Let’s return to a point made above to really drive this part home. We can’t necessarily count on the adult teeth under the gums suddenly sprouting up just because they notice there isn’t a baby teeth above them anymore. In this child’s case, he was without usable teeth on that whole section of his mouth for some time (because of his age).
Cases like that it’s worth exploring crowns for baby teeth.
If you’re considering crowns for your child’s baby teeth, contact our office.
We serve pediatric dental patients in High Point and surrounding cities of North Carolina. If you’re nearby, we’d love to speak with you and develop a treatment plan best suited to your child’s needs.