The baby's first tooth is a time of celebration for a lot of parents.
In fact, a lot of parents rejoice so much when the teeth finally come out after all the weeks of anguish for the baby causing one and all to lose sleep.
However, there are some babies who are born with teeth, literally! Some are born with one or two teeth and this startles a lot of parents when they first see the teeth on their newborns.
Normally, when these happen in developing countries, the doctors simply remove the teeth as soon as they could.
Of course, this scares a lot of parents until they are told of the dangers of a newborn having their first baby tooth or teeth as soon as they are born.
These newborn teeth are called natal teeth.
Now, apparently a lot of people perceive the presence of these teeth to mean two different things: one, that the baby is mentally retarded, and two, that the baby is born too old.
Neither of these beliefs have any relevance to the presence of the teeth.
The natal teeth are rarities and they only occur one in every 2000 or so babies, however, if they are not removed they can cause some pain to the infant as these are not firmly set in the gums, in fact they are quite loose, there are some cases where the tooth gets swallowed by the infant and cause some complications when they unexpectedly get extracted when feeding on the nipple.
Also, it could cause pain to the mother's nipples when the infant is breast feeding.
Third, some infants can literally injure the tips of their own tongues, some even get amputated.
Ask the paediatrician or pediatric dentist on what could be done to remove the natal teeth before it harms both you and your infant.
Remember, these first teeth are not safe, so once removed; you can just keep them for the sake of posterity and even date its removal.
Some don't even need any anaesthesia when removed, they are that loose.