I have a six year old daughter who has severe decay on two of her molars. One of them has broken from the decay, the other is close to that. I’d say 1/2 the tooth is gone. Her pediatric dentist wants to extract the two teeth. I thought that children had to keep their molars until they were twelve years old. Will this ruin her bite?
Evelyn
Dear Evelyn,
Thank you for writing. I can tell that you care a lot about your child and that you are also trying to make sure you understand all of these issues. That is a sign of a good mother.
I’m curious as to whether or not your daughter had sealants put on her molars? This us usually helpful in preventing decay in those back teeth that are harder to get clean because they are so pitted. If not, I would look into that for her other molars.
As for extracting them. If there is the amount of significant decay that you described, then yes, the molars will have to be removed. You don’t want the decay to spread into the bone and lead to infections. While you are correct that it is important for the back teeth to stay until about twelve years old when her permanent molars come in, there are exceptions. This is one of them.
That being said, there is an important additional step. You didn’t mention a space maintainer for the molars she would be losing. This will be important to keep that space open. If your daughter’s dentist was not planning that, then I don’t believe you are with the best pediatric dentist and I’d like you to look elsewhere for your daughter’s treatment. It doesn’t have to be a pediatric specialist. Every dentist does a pediatric rotation and there are some general dentists who truly love treating children.
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