Q: Why would anyone want to save baby teeth?
A: Your child's baby teeth may someday be worth a lot more than a few dollars under the pillow. At least some scientists are convinced that the soft, pink pulp inside baby teeth is a rich lode of stem cells that can be preserved as a sort of insurance against future medical problems.
Stem cells can be used to form nerves, blood, muscle, bone, bone marrow and
to fight disease. Research in this area is new but promising. And there's the
considerable advantage that preserving the stem cells in baby teeth carries
no controversy, as there is over the use of embryonic stem cells.
Only a handful of companies around the country are actually storing dental pulp, usually in containers filled with liquid nitrogen and kept at subzero temperatures. Some current prices for the storage of cells range from $89 a year to $120. There may also be a one-time up-front cost. Bioden, a company in Texas, and the New England Cryogenic Center Inc., in Newton, Mass. are among the companies now engaged in the practice. The research is just another example of how the practice and value of dentistry is advancing every day.
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