Root canal treatment of baby teeth
Cleaning out the inflamed nerve and keeping the tooth until the permanent one comes through.
When decay goes deep, the nerve tissue inside the tooth, the pulp, becomes inflamed. The child wakes at night with pain, the tooth becomes sensitive to cold and hot food, and sometimes the gum swells. In this case, instead of removing the tooth, we try to keep it in the mouth with root canal treatment.
Signs that should worry you
- Toothache that gets worse at night or starts for no reason
- A pimple-like bump or swelling on the gum
- Swelling of the cheek
- A tooth that turns grey or dark
How the treatment is done
The tooth is numbed, the inflamed tissue is cleaned out and the canals are filled with a special material designed for baby teeth. A steel crown is often placed on such a tooth so that it does not break and lasts until the permanent tooth comes through.
Remember: a tooth that does not hurt is not necessarily healthy. Decay often develops without pain until it reaches the nerve.