Different movements of the forceps can be employed to remove teeth. Generally, while keeping downwards pressure attempts to move the tooth towards the cheek side (buccal) and then the opposite direction (palatal or lingual) are made to loosen the tooth from its socket. For single, conical-rooted teeth such as the incisors, rotatory movements are also used. A ‘figure of eight’ movement can be used to extract lower molars.
