Kathy D:  Thanks for the interesting feedback on kissing.  I want to clarify
about the colonization of oral bacteria.  This phenomenon is just like
colonizing the gut with bifida factor in breastmilk.  The baby's mouth (as I
understand it) is immediately colonized.  The point would be to try to
colonize it with good or healthy bacteria as opposed to the kind which causes
decay.  That is if you could control such an event, which is doubtful given
the general chaos of events in real life.  No one would agree to swigging
listerine prior to kissing babies and that was not my suggestion.  And
certainly there are all sorts of other things which predispose to caries:
 pre-natal events such as maternal illness at critical stages of tooth
formation, diet in the first few yrs of life, accidents, etc.  I suspect the
numerous times I gave one of my kids sticky-sweet antibiotics contributed to
her problems.

As Robt Lewis Stevenson once said:  "The world is so full of a number of
things, I'm sure we should all be happy as kings."
Barbara Wilson-Clay, BSE,IBCLC
Austin, Tx