The milk teeth are the predecessors to the permanent teeth. It is vital to save them so as to provide the form and function along with esthetics of the overall body. They fall regularly from the age of 6 – 7 yeas to upto 15 years. This itself is a process that should be carefully noticed. The well being of the permanent teeth is well and truly dependent on the milk teeth

Under the primary molars, are the developing premolars. A healthy milk tooth helps guide these premolars to their rightful position in the mouth. Premature loss of primary molars due to dental decay, may lead to space loss which will eventually deviate the premolars to deviate from their predetermined rightful path of eruption.

But Sometimes, the milk teeth can get infected and on occasions treatment demands the removal of these teeth. Keeping the teeth intact may cause more harm than good to the permanent teeth

Lets look at how a chronically infected milk tooth it affects developing permanent successor!

• Structural tooth damage in the form of white patches to hypo mineralized teeth
• More susceptible to dental decay at an earlier age.

So once the teeth is extracted, that like any other area of the body, our body tends to close this space, by shifting of the surrounding teeth into the extracted space. In order to avid this, we need to use something called as Space maintainers.

There are mainly 2 types of Space Maintainers

• Removable Space Maintainers
• Fixed Space Maintainers

Removable Space maintainers are like normal dentures. Though very rarely used, they can be used in some adverse cases to gain form and function

Fixed Space Maintainers varies in type and form as:

• Band and Loop Space Maintainer
• Lingual Holding Arch
• Nance Palatal Holding Arch
• Distal Shoe Appliance
• Transpalatal Arch