On Wed, 24 Nov 2004 00:20:39 -0700, Kathryne R. Bredbeck <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > Babies are colonized with E. coli bacteria as they come through the > birth canal. So Dr. Wooten's statement doesn't make sense to me. > Maybe it's a case of trying to prove something with 2 true things that > don't correlate. I might have lost track of some of this conversastion, but, it's streptococcus mutans that is the caries causing bacteria and it can be passed via saliva. I'm not sure about tandem nursing, but I have heard that Finnish mothers are discouraged from splitting grapes in their mouth, for example, rinsing pacifiers in their mouth and generally avoiding transferring saliva to their offspring. children are given Xylitol gum in order to clean their teeth after eating, both to remove any sugars and to change the pH of the mouth to make it less friendly to streptococcus mutans. of course, most moms think I'm nuts when I see them putting food in their mouth to then pass to their baby and they defend it- I figure all I can do is mention it and mention the Finnish dental findings. I'm hoping one of our Finnish members will weigh in on this, or you can search the archives for the last time it was discussed. or google it. -xylitol cavities- gets a lot of hits as does - saliva caries- . Kate, http://systems.cs.colorado.edu/~kolina/advantages-of-formula.html Mom to Ursula (10!), Sage (7), Benno (3.9) "There is no snooze button on a cat who wants breakfast."- Unknown *********************************************** To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest) To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet All commands go to [log in to unmask] The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(R) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html