Barbara Wilson-Clay writes:
>Re:  Pre-mastication, saliva, and caries
>The wonderful PBS series on the Five Senses had a brief but fascinating
>segment on "kiss feeding."  Mothers in several areas of the world (Africa and
>Asia as I recall) were shown pre-masticating food and pushing it into their
>infant's mouths with their tongues.  This brings the lips in close proximity,
>and the commentary remarked that the ubiquitousness of kissing as a
>cross-cultural phenomena may stem from this practice of infant feeding.

Barbara, I've read this before, in stuff on kissing written by the head of
my department!  On the other hand, there *are* places where people don't
kiss.  In Mali, adults will kiss babies on the head or cheeks, but not on
the mouth.  They think mouth-to-mouth kissing is truly gross and disgusting
and dirty.  They are also absolutely appalled at the idea of any kind of
oral sex.

About dental caries -- there are also genetic predispositions to dental
caries, due to different structures of the enamel at the microscopic level.
My mother has cavity-prone enamel, and I was the only one of three children
to inherit it (I have 11 crowns and 4 root-canals, so far, and many other
fillings).  Of my three children, Alexander, at age 4, has also inherited
this type of enamel, and has fillings in all of his molars already.  He also
had very crenallated molars, with lots of cracks and crevices for food to
stick.  Now they are flat because of the fillings.  The work was done when
he was basically knocked out from a shot of something, not general
anesthesia.  It wasn't too traumatic for him.  Peter, on the other hand, has
no cavities at all, at age 10.  Miranda has had a couple, at age 15.
Everyone has bacteria in their mouth.  It can't be avoided.  As soon as kids
are able to put their hands in their mouths, there will be bacteria there,
even if no one has ever cuddled or kissed the baby, or fed it premasticated
food.  We share food in our family (mom takes a bite from a cinnamon roll,
then kid takes a bite), we share spoons and forks, we even share
toothbrushes on occasion.  I would be very surprised if the researchers in
Alabama think they can prevent the colonization of the baby's mouth with
bacteria.  And remember that correlations do not make causation.  Just
because the baby has cavities and has the same bacterial strains as his
mother does not mean the bacteria alone are the culprit.  That's like saying
that because rapes and ice cream sales are both more common in the summer
months, that rape leads to increased ice cream sales, or that increased ice
cream sales leads to rape.

Final comment about dental caries.  Susanna mentions reading that a vaccine
was being developed to protect babies from parental bacteria.  Vaccines only
work against viral-caused diseases, not bacterial ones.  That's why there
are vaccines against smallpox, polio, measles, mumps, tetanus, etc. -- all
viral diseases, but not against bacterial diseases such as strep and staph.
For bacterial infections you have to take antibiotics.  Should we all rinse
our babies mouths out with Listerine?  What about all the anti-bacterial
properties of the fluid produced by the glands of Montgomery on the breast?
And in the breast milk?





Katherine A. Dettwyler, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Anthropology
Specialist in infant feeding and growth of children
Texas A&M University
e-mail to [log in to unmask]
(409) 845-5256
(409) 778-4513