Why Should a Child Need a Space Maintainer?

Space maintainers are dental devices used in pediatric dentistry to help children avoid the adverse effects of premature tooth loss of their baby teeth. Unfortunately, children can lose baby teeth for many reasons before they are ready. It can leave you wondering whether you need a space maintainer for your child. If you need clarification about them, discover why your child needs a space maintainer and get other tips for cleaning dental devices.

When Should a Space Maintainer Be Placed?

It is essential to combat premature tooth loss in children because they will lose their teeth at the appropriate time. However, if your child loses a couple of teeth too early, they will confront dental issues later. The problems include adult teeth not having sufficient space for emerging correctly or erupting crooked. Space maintainers help teeth the vacant void open to ensure your child’s mouth develops naturally, even after losing teeth early. As a result, children will have sufficient space for the developing permanent teeth in their mouths when they emerge.

Children will need space maintainers if they have teeth extracted from cavities. When left untreated, the decay from the pits can compel children to have affected teeth removed. In addition, the process leaves an open void between your child’s remaining teeth, making spacers necessary to hold their teeth into their correct positions.

Tooth loss can also occur from injuries as children play around with friends or get involved in accidents. Whether your child loses a tooth to extraction or injury, they will need a space maintainer to prevent the remaining teeth from drifting and crowding the edentulous gap. In addition, the spacer ensures the adult teeth erupt correctly after six or seven.

Some children experience over-retained baby teeth that need extraction to make a space maintainer crucial. The over-retained baby teeth occur when the baby teeth loosen before tightening back into the gums. This condition prevents adult teeth from emerging correctly into their spaces, resulting in crowding of the teeth. The solution to this problem is to extract one or more of the crowding teeth by visiting child-friendly dentists and getting them to install a space maintainer to ensure correct shifting and permanent tooth eruption.

Are Spacers Really Necessary?

If your child loses a tooth or to too early because of tooth decay or injuries, it helps if you get them spacers to ensure they don’t confront challenges with an improper eruption of their permanent teeth resulting in crooked and crowded teeth erupting require expensive orthodontic treatment from the pediatric dentist Greeley, CO.

If your child requires extraction of over-retained teeth, kid’s Dentistry will recommend using spacers to prevent their remaining teeth from drifting out of position to create misalignment and make orthodontic treatments essential later. In addition, early tooth loss can make your child vulnerable to more infections in the mouth, such as gum disease and cavities, eating and speaking difficulties, and various other problems that can impact their general health because of indigestion. Therefore spacers become crucial to keep your child’s mouth and smile in optimal shape and condition by using a cost-effective spacer to hold space for their permanent teeth instead of waiting for the consequences of tooth loss to affect them before seeking a remedy for the problem.

Space maintainers are not minor devices but play a significant role in optimizing your child’s mouth and health. Besides being affordable, they are easy to maintain and last for an extended period. Ideally, your child can wear the space maintainer until their permanent tooth erupts into the edentulous socket. However, the process might require months or years, depending on when your child lost the tooth and which tooth they lost.

Caring for your child’s spacer will help your child get the best out of the dental device. However, you must ensure they practice excellent dental hygiene by learning how to brush and floss their teeth and the dental device putting extra effort into the cleaning schedule and avoiding dental plaque buildup around the spacer. You must also frequently take your child to the pediatric dentist to monitor their progress and ensure the spacer functions appropriately.

It helps if you encourage your child to inform you if they feel something is wrong with the device or it has become damaged because they will need immediate attention from the pediatric dentist to repair the device.

Toothtown of Greeley recommends space maintainers for children losing their baby teeth too early. If your child has lost baby teeth before time, kindly take them to the dental practice seeking spacers to function as placeholders for the permanent teeth to emerge correctly.