Should you worry about your baby's late teething?

When my daughter was four months old, I was chatting with a mom in the grocery-store checkout line, whose daughter was the same age as mine. "My daughter is brilliant," she said proudly, "She has her first teeth already!"

While I'm certainly not one to judge a mother for bragging (Heaven knows I've done my fair share of it), I was amused by this statement. Parents are eager to brag over every little milestone, right down to when our children start teething. Given this, it's only natural that some parents worry when their kids don't get their teeth "on time."

Here are some facts you may need to know about late tooth development in babies.

 It has nothing to do with your baby's health or development.

As the mom in the checkout line unfortunately reinforced, many parents are convinced that early teething is a sign of health or intelligence. This is definitively not the case-- teething occurs at different ages depending primarily on genetics and prenatal environmental factors. Late teething doesn't mean that your child is any less bright or less healthy than his toothier peers.

Late teething has nothing to do with nutrition.

Many parents are concerned that late teething in babies can signal calcium deficiency or another nutritional problem. This, too, is not the case. Calcium deficiency is extraordinarily rare in children born in developed countries, because a baby's body builds up stores of calcium in the womb. The teeth that erupt later in infancy were, in fact, formed just a few months after his conception, and have been waiting underneath the gum-line ever since. Late teething is not a sign of any vitamin or mineral deficiency.

Your baby's tooth development may be more normal than you think. The American Academy of Pediatrics reports that most babies begin teething at around six months of age, but there is a tremendous amount of variation within this bell-curve. Many babies get their first teeth at eight months and are still considered entirely normal. Teething later than this point is considered unusual, but not necessarily a reason for alarm.

Later tooth development can be an advantage.

Your baby may, in fact, be lucky to stay toothless until later in his physical development. Babies who get their teeth very early are more prone to tooth decay, because the sugars in breast milk, formula and baby food can sit on teeth and cause rapid decay. If your baby gets his teeth a full six months after his peers, that's a half-year of tooth decay that he won't experience. Be grateful, not worried.

Very rarely, an absence of teeth can be a sign of a medical condition. An extremely rare medical condition, known as primary anondontia, can cause a child to never develop baby or adult teeth. A lack of tooth development is very rare even in children with other severe medical conditions, and a total failure to develop teeth is nearly unheard-of. Nevertheless, if your baby still has no teeth whatsoever as she approaches 18 months of age, talk to her pediatrician about your concerns. If she does have this extremely rare genetic disorder, her pediatrician can identify the problem and discuss possible treatment options.