Hi all,

Harry Torney from Ireland did a very fine M Dent Sc Thesis on this subject, I
don't know were it was published, but I heard him speak on it at the 1995 LLLI
conference in Chicago.There is an abstract of his thesis with a literature
overview in the conference tectbook on page 136-141. He did a pilot study on a
group of 107 extended nursing/nursed toddlers as well as literature reviews of
historical and
antropological studies.
He found 4 factors that were significantly associated
with dental caries, which did not include prolonged breastfeeding and
breastfeeding at night, but did include 1] defective enamel, 2] maternal stress
during pregnancy, 3] reduced intake of dairy products during pregnancy and 4]
medically diagnosed illness of the mother during pregnancy, which was related to
antibiotics treatment. Note that the first is an inborn infantile factor, the
other 3 were maternal pregnancy related factors. The presence of strep. mutans
was seen, but not statistically verified. Torney's conclusion is that ''this
study provides no evidence to support the commonly held view that prolonged,
on-demand breastfeeding is likely to lead to dental caries''.
His review of studies on ancient skulls and of children in traditional ciltures
showed a very rare incidence of toothdecay.
Assuming that these children are/were breastfed for prolonged periods of time
both day and night, those findings can be seen as sort of circumstancial
evidence in favor of breastfeeding.

Gonneke van Veldhuizen, IBCLC, Maaseik, Belgium
http://www.users.skynet.be/eurolac
[log in to unmask]