My six year old has two infected and broken molars. Both are baby teeth. They broke because of decay. Our dentist wants us to pull the teeth. Is that ok? Why not do a root canal?
Karen S.- Florida
Karen,
When an adult tooth is infected, we do a root canal. However, root canals rarely work for baby teeth, especially baby molars. Extracting the teeth is the right thing to do. I assume your dentist is going to place one or two space maintainers after the extraction. If he or she is not planning on doing that, and didn’t recommend it, I suggest finding a different pediatric dentist.
Space maintaners are very important in these circumstances. At her age, her permanent first molars have either just erumpted or are about to erupt. Without the space maintainers they will drift forward and block her permanent premolars. If this happens they could erupt sideways or not at all.
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