It has always seemed to me that dentists see toddler night nursing as a strong risk factor for tooth decay because they only hear about it from parents of toddlers with tooth decay. I know I never shared my kids' nursing history with my dentist because he never asked, it was never an issue and they never had any tooth decay. (My daughter had her one and only cavity at age 7, my son his first at 16.) When my son, who had a kind of protruding upper jaw/somewhat receding lower jaw (which later straightened out), first saw the dentist at age 3, he asked "Did he have a bottle for a long time?", to which I replied "He never had a bottle" and he didn't ask about breastfeeding. I think a small percentage of nursing toddlers will have tooth decay (this was my experience as a LLL leader) and many dentists don't know about the rest. This is not to say that there can never be an association between night nursing and tooth decay, just that most toddlers who nurse at night don't get it. Kathy Dettwyler, any comments on caries among toddlers in Mali? Miriam Levitt RN, IBCLC, Berkeley, CA *********************************************** The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html