• Question: why do we have two sets of teeth?

    Asked by A'Mari to Greg, Jen, Laura, Mobeen, Paul on 10 Mar 2016.
    • Photo: Laura Haworth

      Laura Haworth answered on 10 Mar 2016:

      When we are a child we have 20 milk teeth, when these fall out they can help the 28/32 permanent teeth erupt in their normal position. Why we have two is part of an evolutionary process that occurs in a number of animals. The milk teeth play a role in stimulating and guiding the growth and development of jawbones and permanent teeth. Our adult teeth are more specialised and can withstand eating harder and tougher food. In addition a child’s mouth is not big enough to fit in a full set of adult teeth.

    • Photo: Paul O'Mahoney

      Paul O'Mahoney answered on 10 Mar 2016:

      I think it’s because when you are a child you can’t fit a full set of adult teeth in your mouth, so you have a set of baby teeth that do the job until it is time for the adult teeth to come in.

    • Photo: Greg Melia

      Greg Melia answered on 10 Mar 2016:

      There are then your wisdom teeth, which come along later in life. I think we used to have bigger jaws that could fit them in, but now have evolved smaller jaws, so dentists usually have to take them out.

    • Photo: Jen Lowe

      Jen Lowe answered on 10 Mar 2016:

      I would guess because as adults we need our full sets of different types of teeth to eat the variety of things we humans do, but they wouldn’t all fit in a babies mouth! I guess at some point in our evolution those who got a replacement set of teeth were able to live longer and healthier and reproduced more and so this trait became the norm.

Comments