3 Reasons to Take Tooth Crowding Seriously

Take a look at your child’s smile. How do their teeth look? Are they beautifully aligned and spaced? Or are they crowded and crooked? Tooth crowding can create a unique, even endearing smile (especially to you as the parent), but that’s not always a good thing. Tooth crowding is something you should take seriously.

Plaque Build-up

It’s a lot more difficult to do a good job cleaning crowded teeth than it is to clean teeth that are properly spaced and aligned. If your child can’t thoroughly clean each tooth due to crowding, they’ll experience plaque build-up over time. If left unaddressed, that build-up will result in tooth decay that will only worsen over time. Furthermore, fixing decay will also be more difficult if the teeth remain crowded.

Tooth Chipping and Cracking

The way teeth are supposed to be spaced allows the pressure created through chewing to be distributed fairly evenly across all the teeth. That distribution keeps the pressure from creating too much stress on any single tooth. Crowded teeth don’t have that advantage. Instead of the force being distributed along multiple points, it’s more likely to be concentrated in smaller areas. This increases the risk of the teeth chipping or developing fine cracks. That damage increases the tooth’s vulnerability to decay, as it creates a breakthrough in which bacteria can enter and eat away at the more vulnerable parts of the tooth.

Chronic Disease

Did you know that crowded teeth can impact other body systems? Bacteria growth on the teeth and underneath the gumline, something that is more common with crowded teeth, promotes inflammation. When one part of the body is inflamed, the rest of the body is more sensitive to inflammation. That can result in worse allergic reactions as well as worse inflammatory illnesses elsewhere. While we aren’t saying that having crowded teeth increases your child’s risk of developing things like heart disease, diabetes, or cancer, these inflammatory illnesses do tend to be more common in those who have chronic gum inflammation.

If your child has tooth crowding, their teeth may be too big or they may not have enough jaw space (perhaps even both). The potential ramifications of unaddressed tooth crowding can be serious–it’s not a problem you should leave unaddressed for long. Fortunately, any tooth crowding can be corrected between your child’s dentist and orthodontist.

Does your child have tooth crowding? Click here to schedule an orthodontic consultation at Maccaro Orthodontics and Pediatric Dentistry today so we can get that corrected!