BFing and dental caries 6/9/96 Brian, In your recent posting, you wrote: "At this point I can comfortably say that breastfeeding does not cause tooth decay." I would like to bring to your attention a fascinating piece of work which I came across lately: the masters thesis of an Irish dentist, Dr. Torney, on extended breastfeeding and dental decay. He presented his results at the 1995 LLLI conference and the audio tape is available. Briefly, he screened the literature and found that skulls of hundreds of years old (500-1000 years) had a decay rate of less than 0.2%. His contemporary research was to investigate whether BFing is responsible for "nursing decay".Children in his study had to have been breastfed for a minimum of 2 years on demand and experienced extensive tooth decay. Results: neither BFing frequency, nor night nursing, nor switch nursing, nor lactose content of mothers' milk were responsible for tooth decay. He did find a weakening of the enamel in the majority of the children who had extensive decay. The key: enamel development in utero. Who will pick up the ball and do the appropriate research? I wish I were an MD or a PhD: I would start on it so fast! This work is good ammunition for those who need to stand up to dentists who order weaning BFing children with tooth decay. Nicole Bernshaw