Why fill a baby tooth that is going to fall out?
Although children start to lose their baby teeth around 6 years old, most children will have one or multiple baby teeth until the age of 12 or 13. These are the baby molars which are at the highest risk of developing cavities due to the deep grooves and close proximity to adjacent teeth. Broken and infected teeth can affect your child’s health and self-confidence. To fill the tooth, the dentist will remove the cavity and insert a composite material. A filling may be an easy and inexpensive way to alleviate a problem that, if left untreated, could cause pain and require costly treatment. It can prevent the cavity from affecting the tooth any further.
If the tooth is not repaired and the cavity grows, there is a chance the tooth will need to be removed. If this is the case, your child might need to wear a space maintainer which is fixed to the adjacent teeth to keep the space required for the permanent tooth to come in. When a baby tooth is missing, the teeth adjacent to it could move into the space and prevent the permanent tooth from coming in or could cause it to come in the wrong place.