Your child’s act as placeholders for their permanent adult teeth. This is why our Hudsonville family dentist may recommend a space maintainer if your child prematurely loses a baby tooth before the adult tooth is ready to erupt or poke through the gums.
A space maintainer quite literally “maintains space” in your child’s jaw where the tooth was lost. By reserving the gap for the incoming adult tooth, we can prevent your child’s other teeth from tilting toward the open space and blocking the new tooth’s path.
Here’s what you should know about space maintainers and when one might come into play.
Why Your Child May Need a Space Maintainer
Your child may need a space maintainer appliance if a baby tooth is found to be badly decayed. Our dentist will have to resort to extraction if no other restorative dental procedure, like a filling, proves viable. This is not the goal, however, as the intention is always to keep natural teeth intact until they fall out on their own.
Learn More → How Eating Habits Affect Oral Health
Children can also lose teeth prematurely because of a dental injury that results from being accidentally bumped in the mouth or tripping and falling. Less often, but still possible, your child may never develop certain primary teeth due to a genetic condition. Regardless, our dentist will come up with the best solution to protect your child’s oral health, which may involve the instruction to wear a space maintainer.
It’s important to understand that much like yours, a child’s teeth are held in place by their gums, jawbone tissue, and adjacent teeth. This means that once your child loses one tooth, they’re at risk for losing more. Over time, adjacent teeth will loosen and tilt toward the empty space. The space maintainer in your child’s mouth is designed to stop this from happening.
How to Take Care of a Space Maintainer
Caring for your child’s dental space maintainer is essential to ensure it functions properly and helps guide their permanent teeth into the right position.While your child has this type of oral appliance, they’ll need to avoid chewing gum, taffy, gummy bears, and other sticky foods. Hard foods like ice cubes, nuts, and even popcorn can also damage the device.
Since a space maintainer will catch food particles and plaque throughout the day, it’s important that your child brushes at least twice and flosses once. These habits will help prevent buildup around the device and associated irritation. Make sure that your child maintains a healthy oral hygiene routine at home and receives a teeth cleaning every six months inside our Hudsonville family dental office while .
Call Hudsonville Dental Kids Today
If your child has prematurely lost a tooth, reach out to our team as soon as possible. Our children’s dentist in Hudsonville, MI, can determine whether your little one is a candidate for a space maintainer. To schedule an appointment with Hudsonville Dental Kids, call (616) 209-4039 today!