As a parent, it can be extremely alarming to notice that one of your child's "pearly whites" is suddenly a color that is not-so-white. While children's teeth can stain temporarily from the foods they eat and beverages they drink, you know that foods and drinks don't cause one tooth (or several) to change color and stay that way. It can be difficult to find out what happened from a young child just learning to talk or an older child who just doesn't remember, so here is a guide to what may have caused your child's tooth to change color, what to do about it, and how to prevent future discolorations in their baby and permanent teeth.

Get to the Root of the Color-change by Examining the Tooth

You can follow the guidelines dentists use for determining …show more content…
This signals a recent injury (within the last few hours to a couple of weeks ago) that injured the pulp of your child's tooth. The redness you see is fresh blood from the blood vessels in the pulp working its way through the tiny channels in the tooth.
Brown or gray tooth. These colors, or any other dark, dingy color, signals an accident that occurred over two weeks ago that also damaged the pulp. The dark color you see now is the oxidized blood that appears dark due to the iron in it.
While some children's teeth do turn pink or red right after injury then progress to a dark color weeks later, don't feel guilty and think you somehow didn't notice that your child's tooth was red for two weeks and you didn't notice. All children and all teeth heal differently depending on the type and extent of injury, so your child's tooth may not have appeared red at all before it became …show more content…
If the injury is suspected to affect the adult tooth growing underneath the primary tooth, then dental x-rays will likely be taken. The good news is that if the damage is found to be only in the primary tooth and your child is not in pain, then he or she will likely recommend that the tooth be left alone and allowed to heal and eventually fall out on its own. The discoloration may or may not go away during this