Do I need to treat a cavity in my baby tooth?

  The incidence of children’s worm teeth is gradually increasing, recent studies suggest that more than 60% of children suffer or have suffered from worm teeth, many parents do not understand why children are so easy to grow worm teeth, the following are the reasons why children are prone to grow worm teeth: the sockets of milk teeth and young permanent teeth have many gaps, thin dentin, low mineralization and weak acid resistance; children’s diet is soft food, sticky and high sugar content; oral self-cleaning and poor cleaning, long sleep and reduced saliva secretion increase the chance of caries. The role of oral self-cleaning and cleaning is poor, sleep long, saliva secretion is reduced, increasing the chance of caries.  The characteristics of children’s caries (commonly known as worm teeth) are high incidence, small age of onset, multiple occurrence of worm teeth, wide range of destruction, fast development, and unobvious conscious symptoms, so the initial stage of worm teeth is often ignored by parents, and most children go to hospital for treatment only after they have obvious uncomfortable symptoms.  Some parents believe that children’s milk teeth will still be replaced, so there is no need to treat worm teeth. This view sounds very reasonable, but in fact is absolutely wrong, the milk teeth also have very important and irreplaceable functions, such as: the most important chewing function of milk teeth, milk teeth with worm teeth, children often eat food embedding, or bite pain, resulting in children’s paranoia, picky eating, appetite decline affect the child’s nutritional intake; milk teeth also induce the normal eruption of permanent teeth below the function, premature destruction of milk teeth, premature loss of teeth will lead to the neighboring teeth to the normal eruption. The premature destruction and early loss of milk teeth will cause the neighboring teeth to tilt toward the missing teeth, and the gap between the eruption of permanent teeth below is insufficient, resulting in uneven tooth replacement; the worm teeth of milk teeth will also lead to the deterioration of oral hygiene, and the newly erupted permanent teeth are prone to caries, especially the permanent teeth adjacent to caries; after the development of periapical inflammation of milk teeth, it will affect the development of the inherited permanent teeth, such as the occurrence of Turner’s teeth (the color and shape of permanent teeth appear abnormal); periapical inflammation of milk teeth will destroy the alveolar bone, and the residual roots will cause the development of the inherited permanent teeth. The root stagnation causes premature eruption or late eruption of permanent teeth, which affects the order and position of permanent teeth eruption; the tooth decay on one side of the child often leads to the chewing habit of the child on the side of the child, and eventually often leads to the asymmetry of the child’s jaw and facial development, etc.; therefore, the cavity of the baby tooth must be treated early.  Now it is summer, children can use the holiday to treat the worm teeth early, because the treatment of more serious worm teeth often need several times of follow-up, if the treatment during the children’s school, many times of leave, may affect the children’s study.  How to prevent and control the occurrence of children’s caries?  First of all, we must maintain good oral hygiene, brush teeth 2-3 times a day, and brush for at least 3 minutes each time; apply fluoride regularly to prevent caries; do sulcus closure for milk molars with deep sulcus and young permanent molars; limit sugar intake; eat more healthy food; go to dental specialist for regular dental examination every 3-6 months; treat the occurred caries actively.