Faye Armstrong was born, to the astonishment of her parents and midwives, she already had her two front teeth. Now, a fortnight on, two molars are beginning to appear. On Sunday, her mother Patricia told of her amazement at her daughter's dental development, reports Daily Mail, London.
‘When she was born, I noticed two white slits on her bottom gum,' said Patricia Caulfield, 25. ‘The next morning, when I was feeding her, I felt a sharp pain and saw they had come through fully.
‘My midwife told me this is really rare. Children are sometimes born with buds but hardly ever full teeth.'
Faye was born three weeks early at Ormskirk Hospital in Lancashire. Patricia said: ‘I keep joking that if the pregnancy had gone full-term, she would have been born with a full set!'
The newspaper recruitment worker lives in Waterloo, Liverpool, with her son, Alfie, three.
She said her partner Andrew Armstrong, 26, a tyre fitter, was also shocked by the news. ‘But he does not have to feed her, so it is not bothering him!'
Babies' teeth usually appear at between four and seven months, although after 12 months is not abnormal. Around one in 2,000 babies is born with ‘natal teeth', but rarely as well-developed as Faye's.
Patricia's community midwife Joyce Davies, who works for Liverpool Women's Hospital, said: 'While you are always told to check for signs of teeth, it is actually a very, very rare event to find two fully erupted teeth after so few days.
'You often find little beads in the gums but there is no doubt about it - these are two fully-formed teeth.
'This little baby certainly got all she wanted for Christmas - her two front teeth!'
Baby's teeth begin to develop before they are born. However, they don't usually come through until they are aged between six months and one year old.
One in 2,000 babies is born with a tooth or two like Faye.
The first to come through are usually the incisors - which are the four front teeth at the top and bottom of the jaw used for cutting and chopping food.
Many babies who are teething can be irritable as the teeth can cause pain as they come through.
Most children have a full set of 20 milk teeth by the time they're three years old. These teeth will start to fall out around the five year mark, making way for larger adult teeth.
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