Extracting Baby Teeth: When Is It Necessary to Remove a Baby Tooth?

Our tooth development starts while we are evolving as a foetus, with our mother’s nutrition playing a vital role on our dental health. Sometimes, we are predisposed to have oral health issues depending on our DNA.

Regardless of the cause, there may be issues when we are children that impact our smile. Tooth structure may be weak, teeth may fail to grow, or alignment of teeth may be off and, although we are supposed to lose our baby teeth, these issues may present the need for baby tooth extraction.

Baby Tooth Loss Schedule

Our baby, or primary, teeth are supposed to naturally fall out to make way for stronger teeth that carry us through our adulthood. Primary teeth are lost at various stages, but all should be gone by our early teens. If your child starts to lose their teeth extremely early in their development, it may cause crowing or misalignments. On the other hand, if your child fails to lose their teeth by the expected time schedule, it will delay the development of adult teeth, and could cause other dental issues in the future.

The usual schedule to lose teeth are as follows:

• Between six and eight years old, the lower and upper central primary incisors are lost
• During this time, it is common to also lose lower and upper lateral incisors
• From eight to ten years there should be a break
• From ages ten to thirteen it is usual to lose lower canines and first molars
• The next tooth loss after first molars should be upper canines and then upper and lower molars

The Cause for Extraction

At the base of it, a baby tooth needs extraction if it is decaying in order to save gum health and eliminate pain. There are some issues that this may cause, but they’re oftentimes less than the issues that leaving the tooth in will cause.

The removal of a tooth at the baby stage can cause other teeth to displace and fill the gap left. However, a dentist can suggest ways to avoid this from happening, such as a prosthetic tooth to fill the space.

Of course, all cases will be discussed before the ultimate decision is made towards extraction. The choice to extract is not an easy one, but it is only suggested where it is believed to be a preventative nature.

Read more about your child's teeth here.