Pathological processes in baby teeth in the future can negatively affect the development of molars. If, after an impact, a child’s baby tooth darkens, this will signal that hemorrhage has occurred as a result of the separation of the neurovascular bundle.
The most common cause of darkening of the enamel is mechanical impact on the tooth, i.e. bruise.
In addition, darkening of a baby tooth can be caused by:
- Bottle caries or creeping caries (develops as a result of a violation of the microflora in the child’s oral cavity).
- Hereditary factors (in this case, even with the most careful oral care, the baby may have problems with teeth).
- The composition of the water (the health of dental tissues can be affected by an excess or lack of fluoride in drinking water, resulting in stains, cracks, and caries).
- Chronic or systemic diseases (since all processes in the human body are closely interconnected, immunity weakened by disease in most cases leads to deterioration of the condition of teeth).
- Self-medication (at times when it is necessary to see a dentist, parents sometimes self-medicate the child, and the baby’s teeth suffer from excess medications).
- Poor nutrition (unhealthy high-calorie food with low biological value is a direct path to the formation of plaque and dark spots on the enamel; lack of vitamins, microelements, and violations of a child’s diet will lead to undesirable consequences much faster than in adults).
- Violation of the hygienic status (insufficient hygiene during feeding of the child can lead to the destruction of baby teeth).
- Braces systems (children who wear braces are recommended to use a home irrigator at least 2 times a day).
All children are mobile, and it is almost impossible to protect them from bruises. After an impact, baby teeth begin to gradually decay, and parents may not notice this immediately. Only a specialist can determine the presence of microtrauma.
Symptoms of bruise
The symptoms of a bruise are easy to recognize. In the area of the tooth where the impact occurred, the child experiences severe pain (in particular, when chewing food).
Other common symptoms that help diagnose a bruise are:
- Hemorrhage. In this case, the tooth enamel takes on a pinkish tint. This is caused by rupture of blood vessels and soft tissue located at the base of the root.
- Darkening of a baby tooth. If a tooth turns black after a mechanical impact, this will be a clear sign of periodontal tissue injury.
- Insufficient fixation of the tooth in the alveolus. It may not wobble too much, but damage to the alveolar process without proper treatment leads to irreversible consequences.
- Swelling and redness in the area of impact. The hematoma may also not be pronounced enough, but it will be palpable.
It is necessary to carefully monitor the child’s health, paying attention to every complaint. Discomfort or painful sensations are inextricably linked with health. And if, after a bruise, darkening is observed on the enamel of the baby’s teeth, measures must be taken immediately.
Complications
After a bruise, complications can vary and appear even after appropriate treatment.
If the soft tissue around the pulp has been severely damaged, the process of tissue death begins, resulting in necrosis. With tissue necrosis, inflammation begins, which requires immediate medical intervention.
However, more often than not, a child’s tooth bruise can lead to staining of the tooth enamel. The color change occurs in a matter of hours.
More dangerous possible consequences after a bruise may be disorders that appear after some time; for example, a cyst may begin to form on the damaged gum area.
All of the above complications without timely medical intervention will lead to tooth loss. The sooner an injury is diagnosed and treatment begins, the less likely it is to develop complications. You should pay close attention to the health of baby teeth, because any damage to them is dangerous for permanent ones.
Diagnostics
If a child experiences darkening of a tooth after an impact, it is necessary to take the child to the dentist as soon as possible. The specialist must conduct a thorough visual examination of the child’s damaged tooth in order to determine the degree of bruise in order to subsequently prescribe appropriate treatment.
After the examination, the doctor will prescribe an x-ray examination, the results of which will clarify the diagnosis. The image will show all the disorders in the soft and bone tissues that resulted from the injury.
Treatment of injury
Treatment of a bruise takes place under the regular supervision of a dentist. Throughout the therapy, the doctor continues to examine the child’s oral cavity in order to be able to identify tissue death and other consequences in the initial stages. The spread of tissue necrosis can only be prevented by immediate removal of dead cells. Regardless of the degree of injury, the child should be observed by the dentist for another 2 months.
Long-term treatment will not be required if the injury to the baby teeth was not so severe as to cause complications. Until complete recovery, it is recommended to reduce the load on the damaged area of the dentition as much as possible. If necessary, additional stress can be removed using the enamel grinding procedure. Hard foods should be excluded from the baby’s diet. To relieve inflammation, you can apply cold compresses to the injury site.
More complex cases may require a number of auxiliary dental procedures. These include:
- Anesthesia. It is given to children only with specialized preparations; before the injection, an allergy test must be done.
- Detailed cleaning of the damaged area of the oral cavity. The procedure may be required if damage to the pulp sac is detected.
- Filling. In some cases, this allows you to save the tooth and also stop the development of inflammation.
- Bleaching. If a child’s tooth enamel has acquired an unnatural color, only whitening will restore a snow-white smile.
- Drug treatment. To speed up tissue recovery, anti-inflammatory drugs may be prescribed.
- Physiotherapeutic procedures.
To avoid injury, parents must have appropriate preventive conversations with their child. However, it is impossible to protect your baby 100% from bruises. Therefore, if you have at least one of the above symptoms, you should contact your dentist.
Every child can experience pathological changes in a baby tooth. Some of them are tooth decay, premature loss and blackening of baby teeth. The last problem is the most unpleasant, as it is pathogenic and aesthetically unattractive.
If a child’s tooth has darkened, waiting until it returns to its original color is a grave mistake for parents. The child urgently needs to be shown to a pediatric dentist.
Black milk teeth - reasons
Why do children's baby teeth turn black? There are many reasons for this. A baby tooth is more calcified than a molar tooth. This means that temporary teeth, unlike permanent ones, change color and shade much more often. Therefore, the darkening of baby teeth is explained by the following reasons:
- Drug treatment. If a child takes medications that contain a mineral such as iron, this may cause darkening or discoloration of baby teeth. Also, taking the antibiotic “Tetracycline” during pregnancy may in the future contribute to a change in the color of the child’s baby teeth.
- Lack of regular toothbrush replacement. Another reason why black dots, discolorations, or some other shade (for example, green, yellow) appears on a child’s teeth is bacterial infection through a toothbrush. If oral hygiene products are not washed properly or are used for a long time, bacteria - cholesterol plaques - will form on the brush, which can spread to baby teeth.
- Tooth injury. A blackened tooth can cause injury. After an impact, darkening often occurs due to damage to blood vessels, a fracture of the internal structure of the baby tooth, which is located under the gum.
- Abuse of drinks and foods high in sugar. Baby teeth are easily destroyed by overindulging in sugary foods. When sucrose breaks down in the mouth through an oxidative reaction, the enamel of baby teeth is destroyed in many children. Moreover, if the child does not brush his teeth regularly, they will turn black due to decay.
- Excess fluoride. Darkening of baby teeth can be caused by excess fluoride in the mouth if your child has been exposed to medications for a long time.
Orthopedist Alan Carr, who works at the world-famous Mayo Clinic, identifies the main causes of darkening of baby teeth:
“Many children develop a black tint to their baby teeth due to fluorosis, injury, and medications containing iron. The use of the antibiotic “Tetracycline” during pregnancy can also stimulate the darkening of baby teeth in the child in the future. When injured, teeth turn black because blood vessels are damaged. You should not ignore another factor such as genetic predisposition. If the mother or father had a similar problem with baby teeth, the child most likely inherited it from his parent.”
Diagnosis of darkening of teeth
Do not set out to find out the cause of darkening of your child's teeth on your own. Moreover, do not try to take a wait-and-see approach with the hope that the tooth color will recover on its own. Even a dentist will not be able to visually find the root of the problem without a thorough examination.
First of all, the doctor will order an x-ray of the darkened tooth. A reassuring result of the examination will be if the root of the tooth shows a healthy structure in the image. This means that the infection has not penetrated the gums, and most likely the tooth enamel has been damaged by excess fluoride or poor oral hygiene.
Treatment of black baby teeth
Many parents believe that it is not worth treating caries or darkening of baby teeth, as they will fall out sooner or later. But such a decision must be made only after examining the damaged tooth by a doctor. If the infection or tumor is not detected promptly, it can ultimately cause significant damage to the formation of the molars.
If the tooth has become too deep a shade of black, but the x-ray shows that the root of the tooth is healthy, there is no need to remove it. And, unfortunately, it will be impossible to return the tooth to its original color. We'll have to wait until the indigenous one emerges in its place.
If the root of the tooth is not damaged, despite the darkening, the tooth is viable. And in most cases, such teeth fall out painlessly and do not have negative consequences. This will not affect the formation of indigenous formations in any way
If an x-ray confirms the presence of a tumor or infection, the tooth will be removed, and its root canal will be carefully processed to prevent the recurrence of infection or tumor.
When starting a conversation about why baby teeth turn black, let us remember that children’s teeth have some differences from “adult” (“permanent”) teeth. The structure is fundamentally the same: crown, neck and root. But the enamel is thinner, and the pulp chamber of baby teeth is larger than that of permanent teeth. As a result, children's teeth are more susceptible to pathogenic effects.
Perhaps the most common cause of blackening of baby teeth (dark spotty formations appear on the teeth, sometimes quite extensive, often covering the area above the gum) is caries. Regarding baby teeth, the expression “bottle caries” is known. This name is associated with night feedings or with the baby’s habit of falling asleep while sucking on a bottle, for example, with formula milk. In this case, tooth enamel is greatly exposed to negative/aggressive factors, and conditions favorable for the progression of the disease appear. Since the enamel of children's teeth is quite thin and has little resistance, caries spreads quickly and affects a large part of the tooth.
A lack of vitamins and minerals in the child’s body can contribute more to this pathological process.
In addition, from an early age it is necessary to pay due attention to proper oral hygiene (insufficient or incorrect hygiene will almost certainly lead to the appearance of carious lesions).
Adults remember from their childhood that sweets are harmful to teeth. First of all, this phrase is completely true; secondly, it does not lose its relevance. When consuming sugary foods or drinks, the most favorable environment for caries is formed; Accordingly, you should not overindulge in sweets.
Other possible causes of darkening of baby teeth (less common):
- A similar phenomenon can occur as a result of traumatic damage to a tooth;
- The appearance of stains on teeth, which subsequently darken, may be due to exposure to some substance (for example, fluoride - for fluorosis, or antibiotics);
- As a result of the course of chronic diseases of other organs.
What to do if baby teeth start to turn black? The answer here, by and large, is one: go to the doctor. Let's say in more detail why the answer turned out to be so unambiguous.
- First of all, it is the doctor who will accurately determine the cause of darkening of the teeth. And the elimination of a pathological phenomenon must proceed from the cause of its formation.
- If caries has developed, then there is no doubt: you need the help of a dentist, and preferably as early as possible.
- If the blackening of teeth is associated with insufficient oral hygiene, then its correction is required. The dentist’s participation in this issue is also necessary: it is the specialist who will understand what is “wrong” with existing hygiene procedures and give recommendations aimed at correcting the current situation.
- You may need to clarify your balanced diet. But then the question arises: what in a particular case should constitute a balanced diet? And to answer this question, the participation of a specialist is necessary. The same applies to vitamin-mineral complexes. There are many options available in pharmacies now. You can choose the best one only with the help of a specialist.
- If a child is afraid to go to the dentist, they will still have to go. In this case, you can go to the doctor in advance (without the child), explain the situation, and the doctor will tell you how to act in this case. The sooner a child acquires the habit of visiting the dentist, the stronger his correct preventive skills will be in the present and future, and this is the key to “dental longevity.”
If you have questions about children’s dental diseases, you can contact the specialists of the Healthy Smile network of clinics.
Parents often encounter the problem of black teeth in children. You need to know the causes of this phenomenon and the means to get rid of it.
Children's teeth cause many problems for parents. In addition to pain, plaque appears on the teeth, and...
From speck to black hole
Changing the color of teeth is a signal to parents that they need to pay attention to the child’s oral cavity and take care of it. A child’s teeth can acquire different shades: white, yellow, green, black. High-quality hygiene measures are quite sufficient to eliminate white and yellowish discoloration on the baby’s teeth.
Dark plaque more often affects a child’s teeth due to the developmental characteristics of his body. Because of this feature, children produce less saliva than an adult, so it moisturizes the baby’s mouth insufficiently to wash away food debris and epithelial particles from the surface of the teeth.
Plaque contains many bacteria that contribute to the formation and occurrence.
Black teeth in a child worry parents, forcing them to see a dentist.
Damage to baby teeth
There are quite a lot of reasons why children’s baby teeth turn black:
In the photo the child has black teeth, the cause of which is Priestley plaque
It all starts with mom...
A weak immune system contributes to the blackening of teeth even when the child is less than a year old. If black spots appear on the teeth as soon as they erupt, this means that the cause must be sought in intrauterine development.
The baby's mother took strong antibacterial drugs, suffered from infectious diseases, and suffered from calcium deficiency. These factors act destructively at the stage of formation of a child’s baby teeth in the womb.
Some parents are of the misconception that there is no need for treatment, since they will fall out anyway. But the fact is that a baby tooth with caries will be replaced by a permanent, diseased tooth.
A caries tooth infects others and provokes the occurrence of tonsillitis, pharyngitis, and sinusitis. Early removal of a diseased baby tooth can lead to permanent teeth erupting incorrectly and the dentition to form unevenly. .
How to solve the problem and help the child?
To get rid of blackening of teeth, you need to contact a dentist, who will determine the cause of this unpleasant phenomenon and indicate what should be done for treatment.
The following treatment methods are used depending on why the teeth have darkened:
Icon - in the service of children's dental health
The latest technology using Icon technology. Used to treat caries in the spot stage. The enamel is cleaned of plaque and a weak acid in the form of a gel is applied to the stain to remove the surface layer of the enamel.
Then a flowing polymer is introduced into the affected area, which hardens under the influence of light from a special lamp. Using a polymer that fills the pores of the enamel, a new solid structure is created.
It's easier to prevent it than to treat it later
To prevent the formation of plaque, it is necessary as early as possible. Experienced dentists recommend starting this procedure when baby teeth appear.
Parents need to stock up on special rubber brushes that can be placed on their fingers. Then very carefully massage the baby’s gums and brush his teeth. After he turns one year old, you can use a special baby paste.
Stop feeding your baby juices and milk from pacifiers and bottles at night, and give him plain water after brushing his teeth. Be sure to include apples, pears, and carrots in your baby’s menu. This roughage containing fiber helps cleanse the enamel. Monitor the humidity level in the children's room.
If Priestley's plaque appears, you should not try to get rid of it yourself. With age, this plaque will disappear on its own.
Make regular visits to the dentist. The first visit is recommended when the child is 9 months old, the next when the child reaches one year, and then once every six months.
Attention to baby teeth and timely treatment gives confidence that the grown child will have a beautiful snow-white smile.
The appearance of teeth in a baby is an important period of its development. After all, now the baby can eat not only milk and purees, but also solid food. Children's milk teeth are not as strong as permanent teeth, so their health needs to be constantly monitored.
If parents notice that their child’s baby teeth are turning black, then there is no point in putting off solving the problem. You should definitely visit your dentist and find out the reason for the change in enamel color.
Teeth enamel can darken for various reasons. Some of them are relatively harmless, and the consequences are easily remedied. But perhaps the teeth have turned black due to a disease, and immediate treatment is required.
So, why do children's baby teeth turn black? The most common reason is insufficient hygiene. If a child regularly forgets to use a toothbrush, or brushes his teeth haphazardly, then it is not surprising that over time plaque will accumulate on the enamel, which changes the color of the tooth.
In this case, the teeth darken gradually. Since at first the plaque is light, but over time it thickens, it is colored by pigments contained in food.
But if a child has eaten some foods that contain intensely coloring pigments, then the teeth can darken very quickly, literally, immediately after eating.
One tooth can turn black at once due to injury. If the impact damages the vessels located in the pulp, the tooth will darken due to the formation of a hematoma.
Read also: At what temperature to bathe a newborn baby: sharing our experience
Teeth can darken due to too much phosphorus entering the body. This can happen if a child uses the wrong toothpaste or takes phosphorus-containing medications. In addition, in some areas, water contains large amounts of ions of this element. When there is an excess of phosphorus, black dots first form on the teeth, which can grow and merge to form large spots. In addition, not only teeth, but also the musculoskeletal system suffer from excess phosphorus.
Teeth can also darken due to a preventive silvering procedure. This is a method that effectively protects baby teeth from the development of caries and even treats this disease at the initial stage. To carry out this procedure, a solution containing silver ions is applied to the teeth. However, despite its effectiveness, the silvering procedure is not popular, since the teeth become dark after it.
Baby teeth can also darken if the child is treated with incorrectly selected medications. So, in the past, even children were often prescribed drugs from the tetracycline series. And taking this antibiotic can cause teeth to immediately begin to grow with dark enamel. Nowadays, tetracycline is not prescribed to young children, so this reason may only be relevant for families in which parents do not listen to the doctor’s advice and treat their children with inappropriate drugs.
Childhood caries
A child’s teeth can also turn black because he or she is developing caries. This disease can appear as early as 1.5 years. Dentists even have a special term - “bottle caries”, since children who are accustomed to falling asleep with a bottle in their mouth are most susceptible to the disease.
Read also: Why shouldn't you stop breastfeeding in the summer? Advice from experienced mothers
The fact is that saliva acts as a natural defense for teeth, thanks to which a neutral environment is maintained in the mouth. At night, the salivary glands work weakly, so saliva does not wash away microorganisms that produce acids from food particles and destroy tooth enamel.
By the way, caries is an infectious disease, so it can be transmitted from adults to a child through kissing or if a mother or grandmother has the bad habit of “disinfecting” a pacifier that has fallen on the floor by putting it in her mouth, or feeding the child with her spoon.
As you can see in the photo, caries can affect several teeth at once. At the first stage, the disease is manifested by the appearance of black spots on the enamel, then sensitivity to cold and hot is detected, and later pain may appear.
What to do?
But what should parents do if they notice that their baby’s teeth have changed color? Of course, you need to go to the dentist. The doctor will be able to accurately determine the reasons for the change in enamel color and prescribe treatment, if necessary.
So, if the cause is poor hygiene, the doctor will suggest professional cleaning. Once the plaque is removed, the color of the enamel will be restored.
If a child is diagnosed with caries, serious treatment aimed at preserving the tooth will be required. As a rule, the doctor carefully removes all dead dental tissue and places a filling in the resulting cavity. After timely treatment, the tooth regains its color. But if the caries is advanced, the doctor may recommend removing the baby tooth so as not to leave a source of infection in the oral cavity.
Loading...