Cavities are a clue to an ongoing decaying process of your child’s teeth. This means when left untreated, the cavities will continue to enlarge. Depending on your child’s age, these teeth may stay in his mouth for anywhere between 6-10 more years. In other words, although baby teeth do eventually fall out, it takes a while before they do. 6-10 years is a long time for the decay process to eat away at your child’s teeth, leaving significant sized holes.
As cavities progress, children experience difficulty chewing and pain eating. Teeth can get infected and cause fever and swelling of your child’s face. We now know cavities can cause a significant poorer quality of life and these kids tend to have poorer weight gain than their cavity-free peers. These children also have more missed school days due to cavity-related issues and have more trouble paying attention in school. (Just ask anyone who has had a toothache before!)
Tooth decay in baby teeth can also lead to tooth decay in the upcoming adult teeth. Read here to find out how: Does tooth decay in baby teeth affect adult teeth?
There are certainly many good reasons to fix cavities even if they are in baby teeth. Please do consider returning to your child’s dentist to manage them and help your child regain a healthy mouth again!
