You may have gotten excited when your baby cut their first tooth, but do you know that baby teeth require care? Even if they fall out after some years, your child's baby teeth are as important as your permanent teeth.
Therefore, you should help your child brush twice every day and minimize their intake of sugary foods, snacks, and drinks, like sweets and sodas. If you fail to take good care of your child's teeth, the child may suffer from dental caries — a leading chronic disease among children.
Below are some reasons to take care of your child's baby teeth.
Baby Teeth Help in Jaw Development
Since baby teeth are temporary, babies have permanent teeth beneath the baby teeth, waiting to appear as soon as the baby teeth fall out. Therefore, the growth of baby teeth on the jaw sends signals to the permanent teeth and the jaw that helps them develop properly.
Larger, adult teeth will grow on the same jaw to take the spaces earlier the baby teeth occupied. If your child loses their baby teeth before their time, they may experience dental issues in their adulthood.
Baby Teeth Help Your Child Chew Food
To aid digestion, your child must chew food to break it down into smaller pieces before swallowing. Therefore, if a baby tooth has a cavity, your child may not feed adequately due to pain. Also, since such a child will only eat soft food that does not irritate the damaged teeth, their teeth and jaws may not get the exercise they need.
Baby Teeth Aid in Speech Development
Teeth are crucial in helping your child form words and enunciate them correctly. For example, when a child losses their front teeth, their pronunciation of some words changes. Speech problems also affect children with poorly aligned and spaced teeth. Such children may take longer to learn some words due to dental issues, thus taking longer to speak fluently.
Baby Teeth Set the Stage for Healthy Smiles in Adulthood
Since permanent teeth grow where the baby teeth are on the jaw, the arrangement of your child’s baby teeth will determine the arrangement of the adult teeth. So, if your child has dental issues, like misaligned teeth, they may experience similar issues in adulthood.
In addition, if you don't regularly check your child's mouth, you may not notice when the child has a loose tooth, and permanent teeth may form besides the existing teeth. Such teeth push the baby teeth out, resulting in crooked teeth. People with such dental issues may suffer from low self-esteem.
Baby Teeth Care Teaches Your Child Good Habits
Most of the habits that your child learns during childhood become part of their lifestyle even in adulthood. Therefore, if you teach your child how to take good care of their teeth, they will carry the habits throughout adulthood. In addition, the child will gain the knowledge and skills they need to maintain proper oral hygiene.
On the contrary, if you don't establish good oral hygiene during your child's earlier years, they may not embrace such habits in adulthood. Such people experience numerous dental issues due to the accumulation of harmful bacteria in their mouths.
We all start with twenty baby teeth that set the stage for our permanent teeth. Even if they will fall out after some years, your child's baby teeth are not immune to dental issues caused by poor oral hygiene. Therefore, to prevent dental issues in their early years and in adulthood, you must help your child take good care of their teeth. At Treasured Smiles Dentistry, we put our patients' needs first to ensure personalized treatment. Contact us today to learn more about our pediatric dentistry services.