The Dentists Warn: Don’t Dispose a Baby Tooth! It can Save Your Child’s Life!

I really think that we all know that losing a baby tooth is a big milestone for a child! But, you probably didn’t know that it also can be a lifesaver. Most parents are familiar with the concept of banking their baby’s cord blood for the benefit of the amazing stem cells contained in it, but if you didn’t do that, there’s still a chance to access stem cells from your child in a painless way. Just take a look at the article below and find out more about this amazing discovery!

Study, conducted by the famous expert and Dr. Songtao Shi, at the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, has discovered that baby teeth actually contain one to two dozen valuable stem cells, which can be used later on in life to treat a variety of diseases. And, for a long time now, many experts have been studying how stem cells can be used in the brain, pancreas, heart and other organs to repair damage caused by different diseases. Shi and fellow researchers uncovered that one type of stem cells lives inside adult teeth. After studying newly shed baby teeth from seven- and eight-year-old children, they tapped into stem cells completely different than what they found in adult teeth.  

And, here comes the million-dollar question – how this works? Well, that’s easy to answer – the stem cells are found inside the dental pulp within a tooth that regenerate into neurons, bone and cartilage–even cardiac cells. In fact, this concept has been crowned an effective treatment for Type 1 diabetes, because dental pulp stem cells can be differentiated into pancreatic-type cells to produce insulin.

Note: you should know that preserving stem cells is a delicate process in that the cells must be alive to be useful. The dental pulp has to have had an adequate blood supply within at least 48 hours of being frozen; any less time and the cells will die. The famous Dr. Peter Murray, director of Dental Regenerative Laboratory, thinks that both teeth and oral tissue can be generated from stem cells contained in tooth buds, baby teeth, third molars, periodontal tissues and induced pluripotent cells. 

You should also know that there are several services available that will store baby teeth for a fee and these service providers recommend that dentists professionally remove baby teeth that are not dangling, because they may not have had the adequate blood supply necessary for storage. And, there are some services that will provide parents with all the packaging and shipping supplies needed, so they can store their children’s life-saving baby teeth themselves. Most companies provide a storage container and the preservation solution required for the at-home collection process. Don’t forget to take a look at the video below! In this video, a dentist discusses why he encourages parents to save baby teeth.