Why are Baby Teeth Extracted?

During an early orthodontic exam your orthodontist will conduct a thorough clinical exam as well as evaluate a panoramic x-ray. This x-ray gives your doctor a lot of information such as the presence/absence of adult teeth and checking the ‘eruption path’ of adult teeth. In this blog post I am going to specifically address ‘eruption path’ as it relates to adult teeth.

Ideally adult teeth are positioned in such a way that they are developing directly underneath the baby tooth they are meant to replace. When this happens properly the adult tooth dissolves the baby tooth root. The baby tooth, as the root shortens, becomes loose and eventually falls out. It is then replaced with the adult tooth. When the adult tooth is not in a proper eruption path, and is not resorbing away the baby tooth root, problems can arise. The most common problem is the adult tooth not erupting into the mouth. When adult teeth do not erupt they are called ‘impacted’.

Impacted teeth have many downsides, one of which is that they can resorb the root of another adult tooth. To avoid this situation simply removing the baby tooth often allows that ‘off-course’ adult tooth to self-correct. In addition to baby teeth removal adjunctive procedures like expansion are often recommended. See below at the change in the adult teeth one year after extraction of baby teeth.