Question

What is the dental formula of a 5 year old child?

Answer 1

Hint: The Dental Formula is a technique of expressing or characterizing the total number of teeth in humans and animals according to their arrangement. This formula is written in letters and numbers. The letters in this formula correspond to the four different types of teeth: Incisor, Canine, Premolar, and Molar. Dental formula helps in knowing the dentition patterns of different animals in their adult to juvenile stages, this indicates about their eating habits.
Formula used:
Dental formula of any animal is given by the following formula:
          

Complete solution:
There are two types of teeth in the human dentition: primary and permanent. The primary dentition is often referred to as the milk teeth and they begin to erupt after 6 months of birth and last till 6 years of age.
Thus, the dentition of a year old child will have all primary or milk teeth. It is evident that there are 20 primary teeth in humans.
The primary teeth dentition can be divided into four quadrants and each quadrant will have Incisors Canine andMolars. Thus, all the four quadrants in total will have teeth.
Now, the dental formula can be given as follows:
     

For a five year old child –
      

In the above formula I, C and M represent incisors, canines and molars.
Calculation is done by adding each tooth type present in each jaw and then total teeth are given by adding the total number of teeth of each jaw.

Note:
The teeth are divided into two arches: maxillary (upper) and mandibular (lower). These can be split into left and right halves along the midline (mid-sagittal plane). A suspensory periodontal ligament connects the bone to the teeth, which are positioned in alveolar sockets. The crown and the root are the two primary components of a tooth. The clinical crown refers to the part of a tooth that is visible in the mouth, whereas the clinical root refers to the section that is not visible.