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)