A Parent’s Guide to Emergency Dental Care

Posted on: 3 May 2016

There are multiple instances in which a dental crown would be a suitable option to help restore your youngster's teeth. Here are a few of them:

Your child has a chipped or cracked tooth.

Even if the tooth that your child has damaged is a primary tooth, it is still important to have it treated. A crack or chip that occurs when a child receives a blow to the mouth during a sporting event or bites on a particularly hard substance can still become worse over time if the tooth is not properly supported and covered. Although the tooth may not be an adult tooth, its health can still affect your child's overall dental well-being.

For instance, if the crack provides access for bacteria to enter the pulp of a tooth, a severe dental infection can result. This infection can make it necessary to extract the tooth. When a primary tooth is lost before its time, it may not serve as a place-keeper for adjacent teeth long enough to prevent adjacent teeth from shifting out of position. As a result, your child could need braces.

In addition, an infected primary tooth can cause problems with an underlying permanent tooth. The decay can spread from the primary teeth to the permanent tooth even before it erupts from the gums.

Your child has a large cavity.

If your child has a large cavity, your dentist may choose to treat it with a filling. However, due to the size of the cavity, the tooth may not be structurally sound after the filling alone. Thus, a dental crown may be used to cover the compromised tooth and reinforce its structure.

Although crowns are available in many different materials, such as porcelain, metal alloy, porcelain-over-metal and stainless steel, stainless steel crowns are often used in pediatric dentistry. These crowns are less expensive than most other types of crowns. In addition, they are gentle on neighboring teeth. They do not tend to wear away other teeth as quickly as porcelain does.

Stainless steel crowns can also be placed during a single dental visit, so you do not have to take your child back and forth to the dentist to have the procedure performed. Also, even though stainless steel is not tooth-colored, if used on a primary tooth, the crown will fall out when the primary tooth is lost anyway.

To learn more ways that a dental crown may be used for the care of your child's teeth, or for additional reading, schedule a consultation with a pediatric dentist in your area.