The Essential Role Of Dental Crowns For Children’s Teeth
If you’ve just discovered that your child is in need of a crown, you may be wondering why. Many parents hold the illusion that the baby teeth are just placeholders. The truth is they play an essential role in the development of your child’s adult teeth. Without the baby or primary teeth remaining until they fall out naturally, they aren’t able to guide adult teeth into place. Your child’s jaw requires the baby teeth to remain in place while it develops without them crowding, misalignment or worse could occur.
The Essential Role Of Dental Crowns For Children’s Teeth
Once you’ve discovered that your child needs a dental crown, it’s time to start exploring options. Just as with adult crowns, there are a variety of materials available to create these restorations. Which of these is appropriate for your child depends on a number of factors. As with most things in life, the materials each have their own benefits and drawbacks. Once you’ve made that selection, it’s time to start the process of restoring your child’s teeth.
Dental restorations with crowns follow the below steps:
- Preparation: Before the new restoration can be placed, the tooth has to be prepared. This stage cleans out any existing decay and shapes the remaining tissue to accept the crown.
- Impressions: An impression is taken of the newly shaped tooth. This impression is used to prepare the final crown so that it will fit your child’s mouth exactly. Taking the impression used to be done using dental trays filled with putty. Modern techniques involve the use of special imaging software to get more precise measurements.
- Temporary Crown: Unless your clinic has its own internal machine for making crowns, a temporary one will be needed. This is kept in place until the final restoration is returned from the lab for placement.
- Apply Permanent Crown: Unless the former step was skipped, you’d need to return to the clinic for this step. The old crown is removed, and the tooth is checked to ensure there’s no further decay. The permanent crown is then affixed in place.
These procedures are performed under local anesthesia to eliminate any discomfort. In some circumstances, your child may receive additional sedation to ease anxiety. Overall the procedure can be done quickly and without notable discomfort for your child.
After receiving either a temporary or permanent crown, your child will need to wait to eat until the anesthesia has worn off. This ensures that they will not accidentally bite their cheek, lip, or tongue while eating. There may be some mild discomfort after the anesthesia wears off. This can persist for up to 24 hours but is easily managed with over-the-counter medication. Ibuprofen or acetaminophen is typically sufficient.
Arrange An Appointment For Your Child’s Dental Crown
Dental crowns are an excellent way of preserving the health of your child’s valuable primary teeth. After receiving the crown, you should continue performing the necessary oral hygiene practices at home. This includes twice-a-day brushing, flossing, and mouthwash. You can help prevent further decay by reducing sugary snacks, drinks, and acidic foods from their diet.
