Because my daughter was so late to cut her first tooth, my husband and I had the “pleasure” of hearing many opinions on the matter. Many experienced parents shared that their children were also late to get teeth, and several young parents shared how many teeth their babies already had.
The most common remark we heard, however, went something like this:
“You’re lucky she doesn’t have teeth yet. The later her teeth come in, the healthier they’ll be.” This often was followed with stories of people not getting teeth until 14 months of age and going on to never have a single cavity.
We usually responded with a smile and, “Oh, how wonderful,” not knowing whether the statement was true or false.
After these encounters, I often had the same thought: “Do these people tell parents whose babies get teeth early that their child is destined for a life of dental disaster?”
After hearing over and over that my baby was going to have great oral health, I decided to find out if there’s any truth to what everyone was saying. I tooth health truly connected to how early the teeth come in? Here’s what I found:
1. If parents get in the unhealthy habit of propping a baby’s bottle during nap- and bedtime or allow their baby to drink juice, delayed teeth can indeed be beneficial. The longer the teeth stay in the gums, the less likely they are to decay due to sugars sitting on them for extended periods of time. True, propping a bottle is bad for gums and oral health regardless of whether teeth are present, but the sugars won’t be sitting on the actual surface of the teeth if they haven’t popped through yet.
2. The age when a baby’s teeth pop through can be directly related to the age she loses her baby teeth and her permanent teeth come in. Translation: If a baby gets her baby teeth late, she’ll probably lose them late, and her permanent teeth will come in late. Some dentists agree that this is beneficial for a person’s adult teeth. Their rationale? Apparently, the longer permanent adult teeth are in the jaw, the harder they become. The harder a tooth is, the more resistant it will be to cavities.
Are you panicking because your child got a tooth at five months of age? Don’t. Do you think you don’t need to brush your 2-year-old’s teeth because he didn’t get them until he was a year and a half old? Don’t! Sure, getting teeth later may give a child a slight advantage, but eating healthy foods and maintaining proper dental hygiene are, hands-down, the most important factor in having and maintaining healthy teeth.