Remember the time when your milk teeth fell off and you looked like a cute little toothless bunny? Humans are diphyodonts, meaning that they grow two separate sets of teeth throughout their lives and milk teeth are naturally required by children for proper chewing and for speech development. However, baby teeth also preserve space for our adult teeth until they can grow up underneath our gums. By distributing chewing forces into our jaws, our baby teeth keep space available so that adult teeth can erupt normally into our mouths. And you thought they were only for the tooth fairy! Ha!
