A Teenager's Guide to Braces

A few bumps and bruises during playtime are pretty normal for a child, and there's usually no harm done—nothing that can't be fixed with a band-aid, some kind words, and maybe a kiss from mom and dad. But what about when it's a tooth that has been a victim of a bump? Impact trauma can have a dramatic effect on a baby tooth. Fortunately, the effect is often just visual, looking much worse than it is. 

Structural Differences

A baby (primary) tooth has some key structural differences to an adult (secondary) tooth. A child's dental pulp (the nerve inside the tooth) may be relatively large compared to the tooth that surrounds it. The layer of tooth material around the pulp chamber is dentin, which makes up most of the tooth's overall content. This dentin is coated with dental enamel. The enamel is the visible part of the tooth—its outer layer. Enamel is a very robust material, but the enamel of a baby tooth is much thinner than an adult's enamel.

See-Through

Dental enamel is partially translucent, so you can see through it to a degree. The way it interacts with the light is how a tooth appears white or off-white (or yellow, when a person's enamel could benefit from a whitening treatment). Because your child's enamel is thinner than yours, the overall tooth structure may be slightly transparent. Impact trauma of sufficient strength can bruise the dental pulp at the center of the tooth. The pulp then darkens, and depending on the severity of the bruising, may appear blue or purple. This bruising can be visible through your child's enamel and dentin. The tooth looks dramatically discolored, but what you might be looking at is bruised dental pulp inside the tooth. 

Dental Assessment

Never assume anything about the severity of a dental injury, and these situations should always be assessed by a dentist. Your child has still experienced impact trauma on a tooth, and while the affected tissues may repair themselves, the damage may prove to be more serious. When the dental pulp is damaged beyond its capacity to repair itself, it may die. The bruising may fade in intensity, but the tooth will remain dark. Children's dentistry has a solution for such a problem, and a dentist can perform a procedure called a pulpotomy, which removes the dead portions of the pulp, leaving its root system intact. This helps the tooth remain in place until its root system is loosened by the development of its replacement adult tooth. 

Always have a children's dentist inspect a baby tooth that dramatically changed color after an accident. The tooth may repair itself, but some intervention might be needed.

Reach out to a children's dentistry clinic to learn more.