eli5: why do we grow teeth twice in our life?
In: 1
Adult teeth are too big to fit in the jaw of a growing child. Baby teeth are too small to be useful to adults. Teeth are not made of living tissue, so once they erupt from the gums they can’t be fixed or rebuilt or made bigger. Plus, building teeth takes time and children need to eat.
So, baby teeth grow big enough to allow children to eat to survive. During childhood, the adult teeth have lots of time to grow inside the jaw and inside the gums. By the time they’re ready, the jaw should be more or less big enough to accommodate them. And adult teeth should be capable of lasting throughout our lifetime, as long as our diets aren’t garbage.
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