If your child loses certain of his baby teeth too early, usually due to decay, it is likely that he will need orthodontic help to reclaim the space lost due to the forward migration of the six year molars into the space which was reserved for the second premolar. If a dentist is able to catch this situation before too much migration has taken place, he can build a "space maintainer to keep the first molars from drifting forward. It might look like the one in the diagram to the right, or it might connect both adult first molars with a wire that lies against the insides of all the front teeth in the arch.