Yellow Teeth in Children – 10 Vital Facts

How is your child’s dental health?

As a parent protecting your kid’s teeth is one of the most crucial responsibilities you must never fail at.

It would be best to teach a child how to maintain excellent oral health as early as you can.

Children should exercise practices and habits to help them prevent dental health problems while they are young and as they grow.

Remember that there are serious gum diseases and oral problems that can be dangerous to human life, but excellent habits will quickly mitigate such issues.

One common thing that parents should watch out for is yellow teeth in children.

While there are harmless and straightforward causes for yellowing, there are also more complex reasons.

You, as a parent, should know the essential facts about yellow teeth so that you can prevent issues for your child.

How does it occur?

What does it imply?

What can you do?

We will answer these questions and more in this comprehensive article about yellow teeth in children.

10 Things You Need to Know About Children Getting Yellow Teeth

Permanent teeth are typically slightly more yellow than milk teeth.
A colourful diet coupled with lousy hygiene can cause stains.
Taking certain drugs during pregnancy and early childhood can result in slightly yellowed teeth in children.
Trauma can cause discolouration of a child's teeth.
Too much fluoride can make the teeth slightly yellowed.
Children with developing teeth are prone to enamel hypoplasia.
Parents must be excellent role models.
Find a dental clinic that is child-friendly.
Prevention is better than cure.
Teach your child to have a healthy lifestyle.

Permanent teeth are typically slightly more yellow than milk teeth.

There are several reasons why your child’s teeth may appear discoloured, and these can be classified as external or internal, and the treatment will depend on the cause.

One of the causes of yellowing is simply the change from milk teeth to permanent ones.

Most parents become worried as they compare newly grown permanent teeth to the remaining baby teeth. They find that there is a slight but visible difference between the tinge and think that there is a problem.

However, the fact can reassure you that the difference in colouration is normal, and it implies that the new teeth are stronger than the baby teeth.

A permanent tooth has more dentin than a baby tooth.

The enamel or the permanent tooth’s hard outer surface is translucent. Hence, the color of the dentin that it covers shows through, which makes the teeth look more yellow.

If you are worried that you are not able to determine the cause of yellowing on your child’s teeth, the first thing you should do is call for a dentist appointment.

A colourful diet coupled with lousy hygiene can cause stains.

Any food or drink that is highly pigmented like orange juice, cranberry juice, tomatoes, and others can cause staining of your child’s teeth. Also, poor oral hygiene can lead to a build-up of plaque and staining.

It is a good idea for a child to rinse or gargle with water after eating heavily pigmented food or drinks.

In addition, good oral hygiene can help resolve and prevent stains. Your child can avoid yellowing by brushing twice a day and maintaining regular visits to the dentist.

It would be best if you taught your child how to floss or use interdental cleaners and rinse with mouthwash the right way.

Additionally, a twice a year dental cleaning at the dentist will be an excellent idea.

Taking certain drugs during pregnancy and early childhood can result in slightly yellowed teeth in children.

Medication such as tetracycline can cause discolouration of the teeth when the teeth are forming either in patches or the whole tooth.

For some people, these reasons are unavoidable, but there is always a solution if you want your teeth to look whiter.

If you have this experience, your solution is to either use whitening techniques or disguise your teeth with the use of cosmetic procedures, composite bonding or veneers in the long term.

At Holford Partners Curaden, we can whiten your teeth either way.

We do mouth trays that you can use every night when you sleep to hold whitening gels onto your teeth. After 10-14 nights, you will have a beaming smile.

We also provide veneers and are one of the top clinics for porcelain veneer treatment in London.

Trauma can cause stains on a child's teeth.

Children love to play sports and games and are highly susceptible to accidents, big or small. An accident can sometimes cause them to bash their teeth, causing trauma or damage.

Trauma to the nerves and vessels inside the tooth can lead to Hemosiderin staining.

Hemosiderin staining happens when the red blood cells are broken down and cause haemoglobin to be stored as hemosiderin. The hemosiderin then stains the teeth. If the trauma is severe enough it can also lead to the nerve dying which will darken the colour of the tooth.

Any staining following trauma requires a dentist’s attention and the different treatments available can be discussed.

What you need to do as a parent is to protect your child’s teeth from bashing or any form of trauma during sports.

It is essential that children who are involved in contact sports wear mouthguards also known as gum shields to protect their teeth.

You can get a bespoke sports gum shield from Holford Partners Curaden. Do not buy generic ones that could fall out or misshapen your child’s jaw and teeth.

Too much fluoride can make the teeth slightly yellowed.

Fluoride is nature’s cavity fighter for a good reason. It is a naturally occurring mineral that helps prevent cavities in people of all ages.

It works by making your enamel significantly resistant to acid attacks, which are a significant cause of tooth decay.

However, fluoride is a double-edged sword.

While it works significantly well at protecting you and your child’s teeth from dental decay, ingesting too much of the mineral from toothpaste or drinking water can cause fluorosis.

Fluorosis, a cosmetic condition affecting the teeth, is a result of overexposure to fluoride in the first eight years of a child’s life.

The first eight years of a child’s life is when most permanent teeth are formed. If your child has ingested too much fluoride during these years, teeth coming in or growing would be mildly discoloured.

What you should do is to help your child be careful with using toothpaste. Ensure that your child only uses pea-sized amounts of fluoride toothpaste for regular brushing. Children’s toothpastes have a lower percentage of fluoride to prevent overexposure.

When you do so, you not only mitigate decay for your child, but you are able to help avoid fluorosis and yellowing of teeth.

You should ask your dentist for an expert recommendation on what is the best toothpaste for your child.

Children with developing teeth are prone to enamel hypoplasia.

If your child’s teeth begin to discolour, you could possibly be noticing enamel hypoplasia.

Enamel hypoplasia is a defect of the enamel that only occurs while teeth are still developing.

The defect can affect both baby teeth and permanent teeth.

The condition results in thin enamel, which makes your child’s teeth vulnerable to dental decay. It causes a lower quantity of enamel than usual, and in severe cases, the enamel of your child’s teeth doesn’t develop at all.

The stain can appear as a white spot or yellow to brown marking. It can also result in visible pits or grooves on the teeth or even thin, chipped or missing parts of enamel.

What you need to do is prevent it from happening and if not, treat the condition as early as possible.

Early detection, diagnosis and treatment of the condition are essential for keeping teeth with malformed enamel healthy.

When treatment is needed, it can mean fillings, crowns, resin-bonded sealant, and professional whitening and sometimes extraction to allow a posterior tooth to be moved forward.

Hence, it is crucial to ensure that your child has regular dental check-ups. Doing so will allow you to mitigate oral or dental issues from worsening or happening at all.

If you ever suspect that your child is having enamel hypoplasia, call Holford Partners Curaden for a scheduled check-up.

Parents have to become excellent role models.

Children are vulnerable to learning bad habits and are only afraid of the dentist because their parents are.

It is vital that parents encourage their children to have regular check-ups and reassure them that professional dental care is a routine procedure.

Don’t give the dentist a bad name.

Don’t say anything like, “oh no, now we have to go to the dentist”. When you talk around or to your child about dental care, make it sound safe and warm.

Additionally, adopt excellent oral care and hygiene habits.

Your child is looking at you and will replicate what you are doing.

Make brushing time fun so that your child will associate dental care with happy thoughts. By doing this, you are imprinting good habits into your child’s mind.

Bring your child to Holford Partners Curaden, and we will take good care of the kid’s teeth and confidence. We will make your child comfortable and trusting of the dentist.

Find a dental clinic that is child-friendly.

Some dental clinics need only a change of interior colour to turn into the beginnings of a mad scientist’s lab. Many of them are decent but mildly scary and intimidating, with dangerous-looking tools visible, cold staff and practitioners, and smells a kid will find weird.

Remember that it doesn’t take much to scare a child.

It would be best if you chose a dental clinic that exudes pleasant, friendly feelings.

At Holford Partners Curaden, we encourage parents to bring children along from an early age to the parents’ check-ups so that they can become confident with the friendly and safe environment.

At our clinic, your child will realise that dental check-ups are routine and not to be frightened about.

Children who come to Holford Partners Curaden usually become excited and keen to sit in the dental chair and have their own examinations.

Prevention is better than cure.

As always, prevention is better than cure.

Bring your child to the dentist regularly, and if you find irregularities on their teeth, go to the clinic ASAP.

Come to Holford Partners Curaden at least twice a year. You can have your regular check-ups as a family and make it fun with your child.

It is better to have regular examinations to spot the early signs of decay and poor oral hygiene. Intervention and excellent oral hygiene can lead to the mitigation of further deterioration.

Additionally, prevention saves you money.

If you refuse to treat an issue that a dentist can do today, it can turn into a more complex dental problem.

When decay or other oral diseases become worse, the treatments needed will always cost more than you would have paid for at preventive stages.

It would be irresponsible for a parent to deny a child of proper dental care.

Are you ok with your child growing with bad teeth? Indeed, you won’t agree with that as a parent.

Bring your child to the dentist.

Teach your child to have a healthy lifestyle.

Teach your child to avoid bad habits when it comes to diet and oral hygiene. A healthy lifestyle will lead to a healthy oral environment and reduce the risk of problems in the future.

Teach your child to eat right and not consume too many sweets and acidic food and drinks. Encourage an active lifestyle so that your child can sustain a working immune system that will help the body fight any disease.

While there are plenty of videos of songs and stories online that teach your child about dental care, you are still the best teacher.

The best way for your child to gain excellent habits is by you modelling.

You have to walk your talk, and your child will follow.

With proper hygiene and regular visits to Holford Partners Curaden, you will avoid severe cases that cause the yellowing of teeth.

Protect your child's teeth today!

Tooth discolouration can be a result of a variety of issues ranging from diet, trauma, medications and poor oral hygiene. Regular visits to the dentist at Holford Partners Curaden encourages a safe and healthy mouth and helps prevent future problems.

If your child needs a regular check-up or is experiencing some dental issues, call us ASAP.

Book an appointment today.