Left untreated, cavities in baby teeth can cause more serious problems, such as dental infections, which require treatments such as root canals. This can affect permanent teeth and cause long-term problems for your child's oral health. When several baby teeth are missing due to an early extraction, the entire dental arch can collapse, making it smaller and narrower. The small size causes severe crowding of permanent teeth.
A narrow arch can affect a child's ability to breathe and cause snoring and airway problems. If a cavity isn't filled, there can be serious repercussions. Your child won't just have to deal with tooth pain. Eventually, the tooth will need to be extracted.
From there, they might even need a “space maintainer”. This would be used to prevent the teeth on both sides of the extracted tooth from moving inward. If that were to happen, it could cause problems when the permanent teeth begin to grow. Tooth decay in the primary (baby) teeth of young children is also called early childhood tooth decay.
Caries is another word for a cavity. It happens when a child's teeth come into contact with sugary foods and drinks frequently and for long periods of time. These drinks include fruit juices, soft drinks, and other sugar-containing beverages.
