My Toddler Hit His Front Tooth!

By: Dr. Semco

Your little toddler is stumbling around the house, trips, and bangs his front baby tooth on the corner of a coffee table. What if his baby tooth becomes abnormally loose, or worse, gets pushed up into his gums? Will that cause a problem in the future? 

A February 2015 retrospective study published in Dental Traumatology addressed this scenario. 52 children with 70 intruded teeth and 76 children with 99 abnormally loosened teeth were included in the study. The results showed that more than 50% of all baby front teeth that were abnormally loosened or intruded by the trauma experienced injury-related problems, such as root shortening or damage, nerve damage, color change of the tooth, or abscess. 

The majority of these problems appeared within 180 days of the initial trauma, but a lesser, yet still significant, number of problems were observed up to 4 years after the initial injury. So, even 4 years after your toddler hit his tooth, he still has a risk of developing problems with the tooth. But remember, almost 50% of the teeth had no problem.