Caring for an infant can be a challenging, yet rewarding, time for parents. Seemingly a never-ending quest to maintain infant health is often challenged by a variety of health conditions, ranging from injuries to bacterial infections. As parents, understanding the dynamics of an infant’s health can be overwhelming and, for many, the issues of dental health are often not realized until a complication exists.
Protecting the dental health of our children begins in the first few months of birth. While teeth may not be visible, it is these first few months that the foundation for health tooth growth begins. When complications involving your infant’s dental health arise, it is important to not panic and, instead, following simple oral care at home and then seek the attention of a pediatric dentist when appropriate.
For many infants, the risk of chipping a front tooth is quite common. When the child exhibits no pain or complications with the tooth, and if the tooth is not broken into a sharp edge, then set a appointment with the dentist as a standard visit to examine the tooth as, in most cases, this will require a simple shaving of the tooth to level it out until the tooth naturally falls out, around age five or six.
Concern, however, may be given when the child’s tooth has broken and there appears to be a shading of pink or redness present in the tooth. If this complication is seen, the infant’s nerve is most likely exposed resulting in significant pain complications. For this scenario, the child will need to be seen by a pediatric dentist immediately. In this scenario, the dentist may opt to remove the tooth, if the child is close to five or six, or may need to perform a restorative procedure for children who are much smaller.
Another common dental complication in young children, including infants, involves the loss of teeth. Because the teeth are very unstable in children, it is quite simple for the teeth to be knocked out during a fall or when struck in the mouth. When faced with this situation, in most cases, if the missing or loose teeth are in the front of the mouth, treatment is generally not required. However, if the teeth affected lie outside of the front range of the mouth, a pediatric dentist may need to perform stabilizing or restorative work to ensure proper spacing is maintained in the infant’s mouth while adult teeth move into position.
As with any oral and dental hygiene process, the key to optimal health outcomes lies in the prompt and early detection and treatment. For dental complications in infants, it is important to understand that the area most often affected, the front teeth, are usually the teeth of least concern. If teeth in this area are affected, and no pain is indicated in the child, most parents can wait out the dental process and simply allow adult teeth to come into position in early grade school.
