1) Baby teeth are essential for chewing

Especially during the formative years, enough importance cannot be given to proper nutrition. The child needs his baby teeth to effectively chew food and help in nourishment. Milk teeth are essential in preventing nutritional deficiencies in children.

2) Speech and facial development

The tongue, lips and cheeks deflect off teeth when forming sounds. The presence and proper positioning of baby teeth assist in the formation of correct pronunciation during speech. The tooth structure also provides support for the developing facial muscles and gives shape to your child’s face.

3) Overall personality development & self esteem

Many studies have reported that children who, due to lack of their baby teeth, had speech defects or were shy about their appearance were far more likely to have emotional and psychological problems. Decayed or missing teeth can also interfere with a child’s social interactions and affect their confidence and self-esteem. This can also lead to children missing school, thus hampering their growth and development. 

4) They act as natural “Space Maintainers”

Baby teeth serve another very important purpose - they save space for the child's future permanent teeth.

A baby tooth usually remains in the child's mouth until a permanent tooth underneath it is ready to emerge through the gums.  If a child loses a tooth too early, before the permanent tooth is ready to erupt or if it is accidentally knocked out, or is removed by the dentist because of disease, the space must be saved. If teeth on either side of the open space encroach upon the empty space, there may not be room for the permanent tooth which might then erupt in an abnormal position or angle. Such maloccluded teeth are difficult to clean, have greater chances of becoming diseased, and later might require expensive and time-consuming orthodontic treatment.

All this can be prevented if the baby tooth is preserved for as long as possible.

5) Banking baby teeth!

It is a common practice for parents and children to save fallen or extracted baby teeth as a memory or for a friendly visit from the tooth fairy! Scientists, however, are advocating the same, but for a very different reason altogether.

It has now been proved that milk teeth are a rich source of Stem cells, which can be harvested and used to grow a multitude of other cells if needed. This means that if your child needs replacement tissue or a tissue transplant at some stage in the future, stem cells from their milk teeth could be used for the procedure!