Kathy D: Thanks for the interesting feedback on kissing. I want to clarify about the colonization of oral bacteria. This phenomenon is just like colonizing the gut with bifida factor in breastmilk. The baby's mouth (as I understand it) is immediately colonized. The point would be to try to colonize it with good or healthy bacteria as opposed to the kind which causes decay. That is if you could control such an event, which is doubtful given the general chaos of events in real life. No one would agree to swigging listerine prior to kissing babies and that was not my suggestion. And certainly there are all sorts of other things which predispose to caries: pre-natal events such as maternal illness at critical stages of tooth formation, diet in the first few yrs of life, accidents, etc. I suspect the numerous times I gave one of my kids sticky-sweet antibiotics contributed to her problems. As Robt Lewis Stevenson once said: "The world is so full of a number of things, I'm sure we should all be happy as kings." Barbara Wilson-Clay, BSE,IBCLC Austin, Tx