My 13 month old granddaughter has what appears to be the beginnings of cavities in two of her upper incisors.  She was exclusively breastfeed for nearly 8 months and since getting solid foods has had a pretty healthy diet.  She was receiving sweetened baby style yogurt once a day until this problem appeared.  Other than that she rarely (like on her birthday) had anything with refined sugar other than once a day cheerios.  Her diet has mostly been fruits, vegetables, cheese, and meats.  She will be seeing the pediatric dentist this week and my daughter is concerned that they will insist she be night weaned (she currently still nurses at least 2 - 3x per night.  

I've e-mailed my LLL APL, have looked at what  LLLI has on the subject, gone to Dr. Brian Palmer's website.  Everything I'm reading says that breastmilk is not cariogenic, but my daughter says that what she's seeing looks like the pictures of beginning nursing bottle mouth.  Does anyone know what the official position of the dental society is on this issue?  Do you know of more recent studies than the late 90's early 2000?

I'm not convinced that what she's seeing isn't a defect in the enamel of the tooth, but we'll know more after her dentist's visit on this week.

So does anyone have any input on cavities in breastfed babies?  My own daughter, who had really poor teeth by most standards never had a cavity before she was 4 or 5, but she did have a dysplasia of the enamel in one of her top incisors that showed up as soon as the tooth had fully erupted.

Is there any sure connection between low vitamin D status and cavities?  The doctor didn't have my gd on vitamin D, but had her mom taking extra vitamin D instead, only she was not always faithful to do so.  My granddaughter was born in the spring after my daughter had spent the entire winter in an office job and so was never in the sun.  In addition, she was not much of a milk drinker, so most of her vitamin D intake in the pregnancy was from her prenatal vitamins.

Any thoughts?

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