We were at a playgroup. Sometimes it can get pretty wild there and there is always bound to be an injury or two. Yesterday, though, there was a child who got a tooth knocked out. He was crying and bleeding, yet his mother just gave him a pat, dried up the blood, and sent him on his way. Shouldn’t he have gone in to the dentist to be checked out?
Rianna- Boston
Rianna,
It depends. I know people hate that kind of answer, but it is true. If the child was young and the tooth was a baby tooth, it was probably not a dental emergency. There is always a chance there was some more serious damage, such as injuring the adult tooth underneath. Only an exam would be able to tell. It is likely, if the child is very young, that the dentist would want to put in a spacer so that the remaining teeth don’t shift while waiting for the adult tooth to come in.
However, if it was an adult tooth, then it needed to be re-implanted right away. The quicker they got to the dentist, the better chance they had of saving the tooth. If the tooth can’t be saved, there are options for fake teeth in children.
This blog is brought to youb y Libertyville, IL Dentist Dr. David Potts.