The importance of primary tooth

Primary teeth are important to the future dental health of your child for the following reasons:
- Enable proper chewing
- Allow good pronunciation and speech habits
- Encourage normal development of the jaw bones and muscles
- Ensure there is enough room for permanent teeth to erupt
- Help your child feel comfortable about the way he/she looks
- Guide the permanent teeth to erupt at the correct position in the dental arch since the permanent teeth grow under the primary teeth (picture).

If a primary tooth is lost too soon, the teeth beside it will drift to fill in the empty space and create a lack of space in the jaw for the permanent tooth successor. Consequently, the permanent tooth may erupt either in the wrong position or may not erupt at all, that is, it may remain impacted in the gums. Crowded teeth negatively affect the oral hygiene of your child and require orthodontic treatment for their proper arrangement in the mouth. Impacted teeth require surgical intervention in the gums to expose them. Although the best space maintainer for permanent teeth are primary teeth, in cases where primary teeth are lost too early, a perfect substitute of such teeth is an orthodontic appliance called space maintainer.(picture below - right side )