Winnie wrote: <I remember many years ago hearing a dentist say he could tell the first time he looked into a toddler's mouth whether or not the child had been breastfed.> Many years ago, I had the privilege of hearing a daylong seminar by Daniel Garliner, who I believe is credited with the development of myofunctional therapy. (Reteaching a child to swallow correctly before putting on braces in order that the teeth do not once again become misaligned when they are removed.) He described how they discovered that servicemen with severe cheek injuries would experience their teeth beginning to "wander" before plastic surgery could be accomplished. He explained how the opposing forces of the cheeks on the outer side of the teeth, combined with the correct motion of the tongue on the inner side of the teeth combined forces to keep them in alignment. He asked everyone in the audience who had ever had a child to stand. Then, he asked to remain standing anyone whose physician had spent at least 20 minutes discussing the benefits of breastfeeding with them. Of course, all the women sat down! I remember that he made the point that when a nursing mother had a consistent very strong let-down reflex, the baby may develop defensive tongue thrusting habits in his suck, swallow, breathe cycle which might create future need for orthodontia despite exclusive breastfeeding. To this day, 40 and 31 years later, my 4th and 5th child elicit remarks from the dental hygienists such as "You have a perfect dental arch-did you wear braces?" Each was exclusively Breastfed for 6 months and continued along with solids etc. for 3 months, then 2 more years for the 31 year old. My eldest, whom I stopped nursing at 10 days due to all the mismanagement prevalent 47 years ago, became a persistent thumbsucker till I used nasty tasting stuff, metal "thumb cages" etc at 2 1/2. Then, he became a "closet themsucker" so to speak. I could go in to wake him up for school and know whether or not he was troubled, as he would be sucking his thumb in his sleep. He finally stopped at 17 years old when he took up cigarettes! For the buck teeth that began to be obvious about age 9, we started him on trumpet lessons! At least as far as external appearance goes, it did the trick. I have no idea what a professional would say about his dental arch though! As long as we are getting such marvelous dental insights, I wonder if feeding method has been suspected in the development of severe torah? Or is that strictly genetic? I have such large bony lumps inside my mouth on either side of my frenulum and inside my lower gums that I have been told to take extra good care of my teeth as any future false teeth would require bone surgery in advance to remove them. Also, the large bump at the back of the hard palate? I always thought everybody had one, but I hear they do not. I can remember still making clicking noises by creating and releasing suction with my tongue motions in the vicinity of the junction of my hard and soft palate when I was a young girl. Even into my teens when I developed hay fever, it resurfaced as I tried to "scratch the itch" at the base of my tongue all the way up into my Eustachian tubes. As much trouble as these tubes have given me in my life, I now wonder whether their bony pathway too might become crowded/misshappen in this same process of development impacted negatively by incorrect swallowing? Personally, I hope that someday a whole book gets written about the benefits of breastfeeding from the dental/EENT standpoint, alone. That would certainly be something hard for the naysayers to refute! If you cannot as yet find time to write it, David, would you at least think about editing it? Jean ************************************** K. Jean Cotterman RNC, IBCLC Dayton, OH USA ________________________________________________________________ YOU'RE PAYING TOO MUCH FOR THE INTERNET! Juno now offers FREE Internet Access! Try it today - there's no risk! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj. *********************************************** 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