Baby Tooth Root Canal (Pulpotomy): Saving Infected Milk Teeth in Mysore

baby teeth have much thinner enamel and significantly larger nerve chambers (pulp) than adult teeth. A small cavity on a child's molar can reach the nerve within just a few months, causing throbbing nighttime pain or facial swelling.

Instead of extracting the tooth and causing future severe crowding, a pulpotomy removes only the inflamed coronal portion of the nerve inside the crown, leaving the healthy living roots intact to support jaw growth.

• The child's tooth is gently numbed with sweet-flavored topical gel and painless computerized anesthesia.
• The cavity and inflamed upper nerve tissue are carefully cleaned out.
• A biocompatible, soothing medicated dressing (such as Mineral Trioxide Aggregate / MTA) is placed over the root stumps to sterilize the chamber.
• The tooth is capped with a durable stainless steel or tooth-colored zirconia pediatric crown to prevent fractures.

In pediatric dentistry, there are two levels of nerve therapy depending on how far the infection has progressed:

• Pulpotomy (Coronal Pulp Therapy): If decay has only reached the nerve chamber in the crown of the tooth, only the inflamed coronal pulp is removed. The living nerve inside the roots is left untouched and treated with bioactive medicaments (like Mineral Trioxide Aggregate / MTA), keeping the root alive and stable.
• Pulpectomy (Complete root canal): If the infection has traveled all the way down through the roots into the jawbone, the entire pulp tissue is gently cleared, sanitized, and sealed with a resorbable paste that dissolves naturally when the adult tooth pushes through years later.

Following a pulpotomy, the tooth becomes slightly fragile. To ensure it survives another 4 to 6 years of aggressive chewing, Dr. Bhagyalakshmi places a pre-formed stainless steel or tooth-colored zirconia pediatric crown to prevent the tooth from splitting.