At the Center for Beautiful Smiles we see a lot of children and their families for family dental care. We thought it would be interesting and helpful to answer some of the (very good) questions that children ask about dental health and their teeth. One of the most common questions we get asked is:
What are teeth made of?
Teeth are basically made of four things that we call “dental tissues”. Three of them are hard tissues and one is soft.
- Hard tissues: enamel, dentin, and cementum.
- Soft tissue: pulp (made of blood vessels and nerves)
Enamel is the hard white layer you see on the outside of your tooth. We call this part of the tooth the “crown”. Under the enamel is a layer of dentin. It’s not as hard as enamel but still very strong. Under the dentin is the innermost layer where you find the pulp, which has nerves and brings blood and oxygen to the inside of the tooth.
Below the gums there is a part of the tooth you can’t see. We call this the “root”. It anchors the tooth into the gums. The outermost layer of the root is called “cementum“. This hard layer attaches to a ligament which then attaches to the jaw. Inside the cementum is more dentin and the “root canal”, a tube which brings the nerves and blood vessels up into the pulp chamber.
To see a short video and a picture of the different parts of a tooth, go to MouthHealthy.org’s Tooth page.
Call us today at (619) 421 2155 if you have questions about your dental health or if you need to schedule your regular teeth cleaning.