Extract Baby Canines to Get Space?

Max is a 7-year-7-month-old healthy normal boy.  But he has a little dental problem.  His permanent teeth are big, while his jaws are relatively small.  His lower front teeth are pretty crowded.  The permanent central incisors (Fig.1: 1) are straight, whereas it appears that there are not enough spaces for the permanent lateral incisors (2) to come up.  They are rotated (Fig.1, 2: 2).  It looks like that the problem comes from the presence of the baby canines (C).  They are blocking the permanent lateral incisors!  Baby teeth will be gone anyway.  Why not sacrifice them for the bright future?  D is a baby molar.

Here we go.  The baby canines are gone (Fig.3: *).  The permanent lateral incisors have room and freedom to move upstairs (Fig.4).

Is this too good to be true?  In fact the baby canines become loose around the age of 10-11.  Do we push envelop too much?  Here is the answer.

Xin Wei, DDS, PhD, MS 1st edition 04/25/2012, last revision 04/25/2012