A nephew of mine came in the clinic with missing baby tooth. His mom had it pulled out clearly because his 7 y.o son was crying non stop from the pain. We decided to place a space maintainer. A space maintainer is a metal appliance cemented to the adjacent tooth. It is used to keep the existing space that was previously occupied by the extracted tooth. What usually happens is that once a space is not preserved, the neighboring teeth may drift and move to the space to fill out the gap. This may lead to a wrong bite or maloccusion in the near future. If you decide to have your childs baby tooth pulled out prematurely due to a cavity or even an accident, pls consider having a space maintainer for your kids.
There are different kinds of Space Maintainer but this is what I usually install:
1. Band and Loop
Space maintainers are cemented in place and removed only until the succeeding permanent tooth is coming out or when the anchoring tooth becomes wobbly.