Dear Doctor;

I love diastema but I don’t have it. I don’t know if my baby could get it. She is four months old. My neighbours say they can make a baby have diastema once it starts to grow the teeth. They use threads, they say. Could artificial method be detrimental to the baby’s dental health in the future? Laoure. 

Dear Laoure,

Diastema is a gap between the upper two front teeth. Some consider it sexy, cute, bringing good luck, and so on, but still it is an abnormality. Due to gaps in milk teeth, sometimes the second set of teeth also tend to erupt and grow abnormally as normal space is not available for this function. This abnormal dentition can become source of recurrent infection later in life as food particles tend to stick and linger in the gaps for long times and  it is difficult to clean such teeth thoroughly. Recurrent infections can also damage the underlying supportive structures of a tooth such as gums, bone, etc resulting in early tooth loss. Moreover, parents who have children with such problems are making use of orthodental experts to correct the dental anomaly. Your daughter has a natural normal dentition which I wish should not be disturbed with second set of teeth also. Do not disturb it by creating diastema artificially.