Can Children Get Dental Fillings?

Posted January 15, 2016

In most cases, when you have a cavity, you get a filling to treat it. For children, though, dental concerns are often different, and you may wonder if your child’s tooth needs a filling, especially if it’s close to falling out anyway.

The point of a filling is to stop a cavity from growing, and therefore stop the infection causing it from spreading throughout the tooth. When a baby tooth gets a cavity, the infection can spread to the permanent tooth developing underneath it, and we may recommend children get dental fillings to protect their long-term dental health.

Kids and Cavities

Teeth develop cavities when oral bacteria and organic acids attack their outer layer of enamel. Since oral bacteria make up the majority of dental plaque, cavities are an almost constant threat, especially to children who might not brush and floss as well as adults.

If your child develops a cavity, then your pediatric dentist will carefully examine it to determine how far the infection has progressed. In few cases, the tooth may already be prepared to fall out, and a filling may not be necessary. Usually, however, restoring the primary tooth with a pediatric filling is the best way to protect the child’s smile.

What About Root Canals?

If you suffer from severe tooth decay that has reached your tooth’s interior, then you might need root canal therapy to save it, or tooth extraction to remove the threat. To avoid extracting an infected baby tooth, we can perform a pulpotomy (or pediatric root canal treatment) to completely remove the infected tissues from within the tooth. The rest of the tooth’s structure will be reinforced with a filling so it can remain in place until the adult tooth grows in.