‘If my child desperately needs teeth stem cells at some point in the future, couldn’t a dentist just pull up one of their teeth then?”
Not necessarily. As stem cells age, they become less powerful. If your child needs stem cells as an adult, the teeth that currently live in their mouth will no longer be very useful.
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There are already a number of global services that will store your child’s baby tooth for a fee. Take, for example, Store-A-Tooth.
They partner with your dentist to collect the tooth and have it shipped overnight to their facility in a temperature-controlled kit. Once the tooth is in their hands, they extract the stem cells and place them in a culture where they can grow. Then, the cells – along with the tooth – are cryopreserved.
Even if the tooth fell out a while ago, it might still contain valuable stem cells!
What do you think? Will you be sending your child’s baby teeth in for storage? Let us know in the comments!
Check out this video to learn more about baby tooth stem cells!
Sources:
Store-A-Tooth
StemSave.com
Livestrong.com
