Fake Baby Teeth "Pedia Partials"

My 3 year old had 1 removed, and although I was leaning towards the pedia partial, my dentist recommended against it. Her child had two front teeth removed and just wouldn't tolerate the partial. She had to end up removing it. My 3 year old also had another child in his class end up getting the partial, only to break it another week later.

With 4 teeth gone, I'd be more concerned with speech issues (lisping, learning some consonant sounds, etc) than eating. 8 year olds eat with 4 missing front teeth all of the time. But, the partials are pretty delicate and break easily from falls, biting into hard things, etc.

My daughter had just one on top and it was expensive and more of pain than it was worth. It came off a couple times and if she ate anything with dye in it it would dye the tooth. We learned that the hard way after she ate green frosting.

I cannot imagine getting one for a child so very young. Many, many children go without teeth for many years because of all sorts of accidents.

I am not a dentist, but I assume the mouth grows so how many of these gadgets will you end up purchasing and how necessary is it in the long run?

What did the dentist tell you about these lost teeth? If you do not trust her, go for a second opinion.

Is this a serious question?????? Really?????

A 2 year old??? She'll take them out and play with them. She'll even possibly swallow them, you do realize they'd be a choke hazard that could choke her to death right?

If she was 5 or older then I'd think this might be real. A pre-school age child does NOT need a cosmetic partial for anything. Good Grief!!!!!

This is about you and not her. You know people will wonder what YOU did wrong to her teeth that allowed her to damage them and have them pulled.

This is about you and nothing about her. I think your dentist knows this and is completely right.

What exactly do you think decorative fake teeth will do for her? She can't even eat with them in. Yes they serve a purpose, chewing, but fake teeth cannot be used to chew so they are not useful.

While I have no experience with pedia partials and it is good not to follow medical people's advice blindly, I don't think this situation is one where you should secondguess the dentist. The times when I start secondguessing is when a doctor is proposing an intervention and I might wonder if it is really needed. In this case, the doctor is recommending that you NOT do a particular intervention. She has no reason to do that except that it's the best thing for your child. I'd suggest you listen to her.

By the way, I think the reason the front teeth are so useful for adults is that we use them for tearing off bits of food from a larger piece. Your child doesn't need to do that for quite a while because an adult cuts the food and they don't eat hard/chewy food yet. So I think the partial wouldn't be needed anyway.

ETA at the bottom of this post.....

If I hadn't had experience with this, I might be listening to your dentist, but I do have experience with this issue with my son. You are right.

My son had an extra tooth up above his top front teeth. He was 4 years old. The tooth was the size of half of a molar. They had to remove the two front teeth so that the extra tooth could come down. It took a while for it to come down, and then they removed that.

Our pediatric dentist told me that the other teeth will move around with empty spaces there for so long. Having a partial in there holds the place for preventing that.

My son's permanent teeth didn't come down until he was in the middle of first grade. The dentist explained to me that it was so long because after removing the baby teeth, the bone in the gum gets hard, and it makes it much harder for those permanents to come down.

Other reasons for having that partial are because having teeth there helps a child eat easier. I can't imagine having that big a space for SO LONG with no teeth there to eat with. My son ate everything with his, even corn-on-the-cob. They never came out - they were just fine for eating. Also, speech is a HUGE issue. All you have to do is talk to a speech therapist, and they will tell you that having a partial there will be very important for your child's speech. If you don't get one, you very well may HAVE to have speech therapy for your child later on to fix speech mistakes caused by not having teeth in place for such a long time.

I would find another pediatric dentist, quite frankly, because it worries me that yours calls this a cosmetic thing. It just isn't true, and she should know that. WHY she doesn't would be very concerning to me.

ETA - I just read through a few comments and I want to make sure that I add something here to clarify. My son didn't have ANYTHING implanted. I'm surprised they'd do anything like that to kids, but I don't know about that stuff. It was made to fit his mouth, and wired to the adjoining teeth on the side, like a retainer. It had "gum" around it and looked very natural. It performed just like regular teeth. They never moved around, he didn't take them out, and they didn't cause him any problems. Just wanted to make sure I made it clear that this was not an invasive thing... Now, your child has FOUR teeth being removed. It will be a little different with you having 4 teeth instead of 2. Maybe that's a little harder, but I don't know.

Please get a second opinion from another ped dentist.

I would seek another opinion and do more research before I subjected my child to pain which she/he will have during this ongoing process.

It sounds like it is purely cosmetic plus it will probably be very pricey.

The child is 2. My daughter was 3.5 when she started losing baby teeth and she had her full set of teeth with all 12 yr old molars before she was 10! She never had to wear braces, never had a cavity and the only dental work she has ever had has been routine cleanings, sealants and wisdom teeth removal.

Certainly research this before you act on it.

I have no experience with these. However, my niece had to have her 4 front teeth removed when she was 3 or 4. They did not put in new teeth. They really are cosmetic and do have to be replaced often. My nieces teeth have since grown in just fine. My bro was worried about her other teeth moving and taking that space but that did not happen. I also know 2 other children that had eiher 2 front teeth (top) removed or they had bottom teeth taken out with no problems waiting for the adult teeth.
Our front teeth are for tearing food and our back teeth are for chewing. You would have to cut things for her--which you would do anyway.

Why do you disagree with her recommendation? Don't you think that if it was in your son's best interest, she would recommend it?

My girlfriend's son knocked out his four front teeth at around 2.5-3 years old. The dentist strongly encouraged them to just let things be; he's eight now with a lovely smile, had no real problems eating either.

My son (7) went for about a month without his top front teeth as they were coming in. What I noticed was a very quick adaptation. Sure, I cut some of his raw veggies a little smaller so he could eat them with his back molars, but big surprise-- if you watch a child bite into a carrot, they will automatically use their side teeth.

B., I would do a whole lot of research before subjecting your kid to this device. Here is one article written by a dentist, and it's worth looking at.

http://cyberdentist.blogspot.com/2006/07/fake-baby-teeth-....

I just read through this, Guidelines on Management of Acute Dental Trauma, which lays out protocols for ADA dentists, and there is no suggestion of using partial of any sort

http://www.aapd.org/media/Policies_Guidelines/G_trauma.pdf

From AAPD Guidelines (I'll include a link at the bottom):
"Adverse effects associated with space maintainers include:
(1) dislodged,broken,and lost appliances, (2) plaque accumulation, (3) caries, (4) interference with successor eruption, (5) undesirable tooth movement, (6) inhibition of alveolar growth, (7) soft tissue impingement, and (8) pain. Premature loss of a primary tooth of any type has the potential to cause loss of space available for the succeeding permanent tooth, but
there is a lack of consensus regarding the effectiveness of space
maintainers in preventing or reducing the severity of malocclusion."

Link:http://www.aapd.org/media/Policies_Guidelines/G_DevelopDe...

I include this because you need to know that the feedback your dentist gave you is right in line with what's recommended.

For what it's worth, my girlfriend's mom worried about how people would respond to her grandson with those missing teeth. She needn't have worried, everyone thought he was as cute as could be.

My grandson had front teeth pulled (another story) and he never had any partials. His adult teeth grew in fine. Yes, he had a hole in the mouth but so many kids do and no one thought anything about it.

Just save the money and put it in the bank for college or the braces. This is a little bump in the road of life. Besides I wouldn't want to worry about my child eating his partial because it came loose or it got lost.

the other S.

PS Get a second opinion.

http://cyberdentist.blogspot.com/2006/07/fake-baby-teeth-...

I would seek another opinion.

My daughter (now almost 11) had nearly ALL her teeth on the left side removed when she was in Pre-Kindergarten (four yrs. old). It was recommended she get the other side done, as well. She had "soft enamel" or "soft teeth". We only did the one side and decided it was just too much for her to go through and she needed to eat, dang it!

As it turns out, she was fine on both sides. The roots of baby teeth are not deep and I guess dentists opt to pull or do the silver caps over them or partials. My daughter had no toothaches on the other side of her mouth, where we allowed the teeth to remain. In retrospect, I wish we had gone to another dentist and gotten another opinion. In my knowledge of the matter, if the teeth are not hurting her or have visible ghastly cavities, let them be until they NEED to be pulled because of one of those two reasons. That's just my thought on it. But at least get a second opinion.

I don't know how pediatric partials work, though. Are they mounted into the gums/bone? Do they come out? How long would they need to stay.... until her grown-up teeth break through? If they come out (for cleaning, etc..) I would worry about losing them or her choking on them. If they are semi-permanent, how much pain and recovery time are entailed? Also, and lastly, but not leastly, how much out of pocket $$ are you looking at? Sad, but you have to factor that in, as well.

Best of luck, and let us know what you decide on and how it works out. I'm curious about this.

L.

P.S. I just read a little bit on these. It stated that the partial is "cemented" onto the permanent teeth next to the partial. At 2, she wouldn't have any permanent teeth yet. SO, with that being said, what happens if she loses one of the baby teeth that the partial is adhered to?! Would she need to have it removed and wait til the grown up tooth comes out more and have a new partial made and cemented back again?! That sounds somewhat traumatic to me. Lots to think about.

No I don't have experience with this.
Maybe you should get the opinion of another pediatric dentist--seems like you don't have faith in this O..

if you think you can keep your little one for falling and busting their mouth, eating hard things (suckers, ice, or anything hard they have to bite in to)?. then do it... are you going to pay more if they get chipped or broken? if yes then do it.
i dont see it useful to get them. they chew with with their molars not their front teeth.
however if it was my child i would pay for them... but im that mom who cares a little too much about my childs appearance...

Do the teeth absolutely have to be pulled ? Or can they have root canals and porcelain crowns? I just did that for my kiddo - 4 white over silver crowns in front. They look great and he eats and speaks fine. However, they are quite expensive. I paid around $4000 for just those crowns, not including the root canals, etc.