When children lose their baby teeth too soon, this could mean trouble with the arrival of permanent teeth, and an increased risk of poor alignment. To help guide the growth of your smile, we could offer custom-fitted space maintainers. In today’s blog, your Shirley, NY, pediatric dentist and orthodontist talks about how these help little smiles.
The Causes of Dental Misalignment in Little Smiles
How do children develop crooked, crowded, or overlapping teeth? Often, this is due to the premature loss of the primary teeth. When this occurs, this causes teeth in the smile to drift and could complicate how permanent teeth erupt, leading to impaction or uneven teeth that can grow more severe as the smile develops. To address this in children as young as age seven, we take a phased approach. We employ phased orthodontics to help guide the growth of the smile and limit the severity of misalignment until the teen years, when we can complete treatment with braces or Invisalign® aligners.
Ensuring the Eruption of Permanent Teeth
To keep spaces in the smile open and ensure that permanent teeth can erupt and fill them perfectly, we need to maintain the open area with a space maintainer. This is device that is designed to attach to the teeth and keep an area open for the permanent teeth. They can be fixed in place or removable, although we usually recommend fixed since this reduces the risk of kids losing or misplacing them. We can offer instructions for cleaning and maintaining them, and keeping your child’s smile healthy as they wear them.
Retainers, Braces, and More
Another example of a phased orthodontic for young children is a retainer, which again is used to help limit major misalignment until our team can complete treatment in the teen years. Again, this can be fixed in place or removable, and can be attached to one or both sides of the smile. As with space maintainers, this is custom-made for your child’s smile to offer treatment with precision and accuracy. Once the permanent teeth all arrive and their surfaces calcify, we can complete treatment with either braces, or with Invisalign® aligners.
If you have any questions about the treatments we use to help kids enjoy even smiles, or about the orthodontics we offer for adults, then contact our team today. We’re ready to help your whole family smile with confidence, and that could begin with a space maintainer.
Your Shirley, NY, Orthodontist and Pediatric Dentist Helps Ensure Even Smiles
Our team wants to help your children avoid the onset of poor alignment! To learn more about avoiding the onset of dental misalignment, then contact Shirley Orthodontics and Pediatric Dentistry in Shirley, NY, by calling (631) 399-1600.
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