The vast majority of babies who are breastfed on demand do not have dental
caries, whereever they live.  This is also true for prehistoric populations.
I, personally, think that the more important factors include enamel
strength.  Whether because of genetic factors or insults to the mother
during pregnancy (metabolic insults, like a fever or virus, not a rude
comment!) -- weak enamel is certainly more susceptible to cavities.  I have
weak enamel, so does my mother, but not my two sisters; one of my children
has weak enamel, the others do not.  My mother, me, and my younger son all
have crummy teeth, many fillings, many root canals, many crowns.  Well, the
six year old hasn't had to have any root canals yet, but all of his
deciduous molars are crowned.  Ours is genetic.  Deciduous tooth enamel is
formed in utero, so anything that disrupts it can also lead to poor enamel
formation.  This often presents as "linear enamel hypoplasia" -- a line
running horizontally across the front of the front teeth, often a groove or
pits, where the underlying dentin is exposed.  These often end up with
cavities.  If it occurs later in pregnancy, it can result in total failure
of the crown to form over the molars -- they come through the gums looking
yellowish and soft and often already decayed.

Some children do manage to pool breast milk in their mouths, but it is the
rare baby who is able to accomplish this, as active suckling and swallowing
results in an absence of milk near the front teeth.

More significant than breastfeeding, by far, I am convinced, are the other
foods and drinks children are given -- soft drinks, juices, imitation
juices, sticky candy, cookies, potato chips, raisins, gum, etc. are all very
bad for children's teeth.  It makes absolutely no sense to say a 2 year old
should be weaned off of breastfeeding, but let him/her go ahead and drink
sugar-filled drinks and eat sticky sugar or carbohydrate filled foods.  I
had to fight a major battle against raisins as a daily snack at Alex's
childcare, but he might have raisins to eat at 10 am and yet would still
have gooey raisin gunk stuck in his back molars at 3 that afternoon, after
having had lunch and juice.  So if any dentist told me that my child needed
to stop taking in breast milk because of dental caries, I would ask about
these other things to.

It reminds me of the ob/gyns who tell pregnant women that they must wean
because of the danger of miscarriage, but don't tell that they must also
abstain from sexual intercourse and orgasms, even though the latter causes
much greater oxytocin release and uterine cramping than the former.


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Katherine A. Dettwyler, Ph.D.                         email: [log in to unmask]
Anthropology Department                               phone: (409) 845-5256
Texas A&M University                                    fax: (409) 845-4070
College Station, TX  77843-4352
http://www.prairienet.org/laleche/dettwyler.html