Pediatric Dental Crowns

As a parent, you do all you can to make sure your child grows up with the best oral health and the happiest possible smile. Even with good home hygiene, decay and traumatic injuries can happen and affect the integrity of a primary tooth. We try to keep your child’s primary teeth intact whenever possible until the permanent teeth erupt, which is when restoring your child’s tooth with a pediatric dental crowns become a good option.

Crowns are a restorative procedure used to improve a tooth’s shape or to strengthen a tooth. Crowns are most often used if your child has a tooth that is broken, worn, or damaged by tooth decay, and is too damaged to hold a filling.

A crown is a “cap” cemented onto an existing tooth that usually covers the portion of the tooth above the gum line. In effect, the crown becomes the tooth’s new outer surface. Crowns can be made of metal (stainless steel) or composite (strip crowns). Composite strip crowns are sometimes used for the front teeth if they are restorable, while stainless steel crowns are best on back teeth because of their strength.

Unlike fillings, which are applied directly onto your child’s tooth, a crown is cemented on top of your childs tooth and placed so that his or her bite and jaw movements function normally.

Stainless Steel Crowns

Stainless steel dental crowns are considered a good temporary restoration to save a primary tooth until the permanent tooth can erupt and take its place. Keeping the primary tooth if at all possible is very important. A primary tooth can be restored with a stainless steel crown during one appointment.

Strip Crowns

Strip crowns are a way to restore front teeth if possible. We try our hardest to keep the front primary teeth in the mouth for as long as possible, as they aid in your child developing their speech. Children use their front teeth to push off of with their tongue to develop certain sounds and words as they progress in language. Strip crowns are white in color and wrap around the whole front tooth.