The space maintainer appliance is a “maintenance wire” used after the early extraction of a primary (baby) tooth. Its purpose is to maintain the space until the eruption of the permanent tooth. In cases of premature loss of a primary tooth, the adjacent teeth will “lean” towards the edentulous (empty) space and thus they will occupy the space where the permanent tooth was supposed to erupt. The placement of the space maintainer appliance is an easy and painless procedure.
The dentist will assess whether the use of a space maintainer appliance is necessary, taking into consideration various factors such as the dental age of the child, the existing teeth position in the dental arch etc. In this way the child avoids more complicated orthodontic treatments in the future.