New study says that premature children have smaller teeth

A study from the Faculty of Odontology at Malmö University in Sweden unveiled that the size of teeth in premature children is smaller than those of children who were full term.  In recent years multiple studies of children's dental health have been published by researchers at the Faculty of Odontology in Malmö.  The research involved 80 children born before week 33 of pregnancy.

"We have examined how their teeth are developing and, among other things, we've looked at their bites.  We've also checked their need for orthodontic adjustments and found that it is greater than in the control group, children born at full term," she says.

All those children were born in the mid 1990s and were examined when they developed their first permanent teeth at the age(s) of 8 through 10.  According to the study results, the teeth of premature children were up to 10% smaller in comparison to the control group.

"When we examined the children we also saw that their teeth were farther apart," says Liselotte Paulsson-Björnsson, a specialist in orthodontics.  Paulsson-Björnsson mentioned that having small teeth is not a serious problem, but it can be aesthetically problematic to have large gaps between your teeth.

"But these problems can be addressed.  We can move teeth if the gaps between them are too large, and there is also good material to extend teeth if they're too small," she added.