I have been speaking to parents on end about the importance of temporary or milk teeth. Even though they will be changed, they have a key role to play in the proper alignment of the permanent ones. However, there are times where we cannot save the temporary tooth and for one reason or another, we must extract it before its time. In this case, your child might need what is called a space maintainer.

 Space maintainers help “hold space” for permanent teeth. If a primary tooth is lost too early, adult teeth can erupt into the empty space instead of where they should be. When more adult teeth are ready to come into the mouth, there may not be enough room for them because of the lost space. To prevent this from happening, we may recommend a space maintainer to hold open the space left by the missing tooth.