Missing lateral incisors

[AhBiscuits]

DS is 8 and his dentist thinks he has congenital missing lateral incisors. If your child had this, how did you deal with it?

It looks like the choice will be pulling his teeth together to close the gaps and reshaping his canines to look like incisors or creating a gap for the lateral incisors and getting implants when he's an adult. I think he'd wear a bridge in the meantime.

It's watch and wait for now, but I was interested to hear any experiences.

My DH doesn't have any lateral incisors - yes, he has gaps in his teeth, but that's him - doesn't bother him, and I obviously still found him attractive enough to marry. However, I do wonder if they're in the roof of his mouth - see below.

One of DD's was missing. When she had braces (not for gaps but for protruding front teeth), it was picked up that the one that was missing, had actually grown the wrong way into the roof of her mouth. So if your son's dentist hasn't done an xray in recent times, it might be worth doing one - if he needs braces in the future and there's one/both in roof of mouth, they can be exposed (minor op) and slowly twisted in the right direction.

I have missing lateral incisors. Nothing was done as a child but I had braces as an adult to close the gap, reshape the canines and composite bonding. I haven’t needed any implants.

I’ve added my before and afters. It took a long time as an adult (4 years) so I would get them done as young as possible.

My mother had this - had a dental plate and later constantly falling out crowns. My DS also didn't have any and the dentist never mentioned it - it was DD's orthodontist who glanced at him during her appointment and asked when he'd last had an xray ... which he had 5 minutes later. Luckily the teeth were there but very high and had no way of descending as his mouth was so crowded. So he had a palate extenders from 7-8 yo to create space and they eventually came down although this was after he had fixed braces.

I do wonder if DM had the teeth but not the space - I've only got 24 adult teeth because my orthodontist pulled the rest out!

His teeth are very gappy currently. There's a gap between the front two and where his laterals should be. I'd be quite keen to get them tidied up as early as the orthodontist thinks is ok.