CROWDING OF TEETH IN CHILDREN

Crowding of teeth is the second most common dental problem seen in children next to dental cavities. It is of esthetic concern for the parents but also from a functional point it leads to a lot of dental issues in teeth like poor maintenance of gum health cavities in between two teeth at a later age when they reach young adults.

Alleviation of dental crowding though gives a very good cosmetic improvement for the person is one of the earliest orthodontic corrections for children as well as young adults. If this problem is noticed at the age of 6 years it can be slowly and steadily monitored and alleviation process can be initiated with a procedure called serial extraction.

This technique of intentionally extracting a few baby teeth helps in setting the teeth in a better position as and when they erupt into the mouth.

Serial extraction procedure helps in bringing the teeth to a better position and not to the best of the position. At the age of 11-12 years when all the set of permanent teeth have erupted if needed for a clean cut cosmetic alignment can be established with the help of orthodontic braces if young adults who have not undertaken any intervention for crowding, can be managed with orthodontic braces to correct the dental crowding.

If the dental crowding is severe in nature (ex.10 mm or more of crowding) this has to be managed with extraction of few permanent teeth (bicuspids) to provide the needed space to position the remaining teeth better if it will not result in alignment of teeth with the teeth getting too forward to the face making the entire cosmetic appearance very unpleasant. So the take-home message is dental crowding has to be corrected by all means if it is moderate to severe in nature.