Hello everybody, I wanted to comment on the post about a newspaper article about dental decay and bacteria. My 9 year old son has a heart murmur and has a massive problem with cavities. After 5 years of treating and losing the battle I was referred to the dental clinic at the children's hospital and the decision was made to do the work under general anesthetic. It took 3 hours in the operating room and although he has recovered well (this took place in early september) it was very tramatic. Some of the information that the dentist at the clinic gave me was that dental disease is indeed bacterial in nature and that they have studied the DNA of the bacteria and found that in the majority of cases the transmission was indeed from the mother to the child. Yes I felt devasted and guilty. I did breastfeed him but only for 10 months, back then I didn't know that being pregnant didn't mean that I had to wean. It is not just a theory it seems about the transmission and the nature of dental disease. I have also heard that work is being done to develop a vaccine against this disease. The dentist did not mention anything about treating mothers with antibiotics to prevent this transmission. A friend also told me about a test that can be done, I think to measure the bacteria count in the child's mouth, and that there is something other than fluoride that they can apply if the count is high. I would also like to mention that this dentist felt that in kids who were at risk for a lot of dental decay or who already had caught "the bug" that on demand breastfeeding at night might cause further problems. In our family this child was the only one who did not nurse a lot at night. The other interesting part of this whole tooth decay issue revolves around what the child eats and drinks, regular plain apple juice being apparently one of the biggest problems. Sorry this was so long! Susanna (mother of 4 sons--LLL leader in Halifax, NS, Canada)