What is Pedodontics?
Pedodontist is the specialist dentist who performs all kinds of dental treatment and preventive dentistry applications applied to children from birth until the age of 12-13 when all the milk teeth in the mouth complete their changes and who have received special training on this subject, and this specialty of dentistry is called Pedodontics.
What is the Purpose of Pedodontics?
The primary purpose of pedodontics is to treat the problems that have arisen, but to find the source of these problems and take measures to prevent them from occurring. The procedures applied for this purpose are called Preventive Dentistry.
Preventive dentistry includes regulating nutritional habits, correcting wrong eating habits, providing training on oral and dental hygiene, procedures that can be applied to teeth such as local fluoride and fissure sealant, and regular controls.
Importance of Milk Teeth
In our country, milk teeth are not given importance by most individuals because they are teeth that change when the time comes. However, due to the loss of milk teeth in the early period, more serious problems are encountered in the future. For this reason, it is necessary to know the importance and functions of milk teeth very well.
The primary task of milk teeth is to ensure that the child is properly fed. In addition, the proper development of speech also depends on the presence of milk teeth. Milk teeth protect the area they cover for the permanent tooth that will replace them and guide it while the permanent tooth is erupting.
When the primary tooth is lost in the early period, this natural place-holding function also disappears. The caries formed in the milk teeth create foci of infection in the child, and also make feeding difficult. Loss of milk teeth can negatively affect the appearance and speech of the child, and psychological problems may occur in the child.
