Loose Tooth

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By Esthetique Dental

Our family dentiss in Keller TX does not recommend pulling your child’s loose tooth out. However, many parents ignore this advice and do it anyway.

Some children are freaked out by a dangling tooth, and some are scared that if it is not taken out they will swallow it! Pulling teeth out instead of letting them fall out on their own increases the risk of developing an infection. It also may cause a child’s gums to bleed.

If you are going to disregard our advice and pull it out anyway, it is important to pull it out the right way. In old cartoons a string is tied to a child’s tooth, and then tied to a door know. Once the door closes the string rips out the tooth. This, however, is a terrible idea to do in real life!

If your child has a loose tooth that they want you to remove, we have some tips that you can follow. By following these tips the tooth may come out on its own. To start, try telling your child to wiggle the tooth with their finger or tongue. Constant wiggling of the loose tooth will help to further loosen it, and may even help it fall out.

If a child is complaining that they want the loose tooth removed, you can also have them pull it out them self. The child is the only one that could feel the pain, and if the tooth isn’t loose enough it will hurt too much trying to pull it out. The child will most likely stop there and wait a bit longer.

If you are going to remove a tooth, use dry gauze and tissues to grasp the tooth. Then, gently twist it out. If you don’t feel comfortable removing it yourself, you can have your child bite into an apple. This will help the tooth to fall out. If that doesn’t work or isn’t an option, we encourage you to contact our family dentist in Keller TX and schedule an appointment. Call 817-741-1240 today.