Denny Rice asked:
> Excuse me, but does this imply that, regardless of what a clinical trial
> has proven, that the facts are "really" what the author suggests?
The author's only statement on breastmilk is that it is not cariogenic. All
other cariogenics he mentions are not human milk.
He also states that:
''children who are breast fed
>during their sleep are at risk for developing nursing caries. This is because
>the flow of saliva is greatly diminished when a child sleeps.''
Has anyone ever studied salivaflow in a night*nursing* nursling? I mean really
at time of active drinking?
It is my understanding that first: salivaflow decreases at night because there
is no eating/drinking action that needs saliva (as is the case during waking
hours when you don't eat or drink: you'll get a ''dry mouth'') and second: a
baby at night either
breastfeeds and swallows and thus will have salivaflow or is not drinking and
not swallowing and thus there will be no salivaflow.
There is data showing that in cultures were breastfeeding day and night and
prolonged breastfeeding is/was the norm, caries in babies and toddlers is rare.
For example:
Torney H: Prolonged on-demand breastfeeding and dental caries - an investigation
(m. dent. sc. thesis).
One conclusion: Breastfeeding per se did not appear to be associated with dental
caries since the high and low caries (1 or none carious lesion) groups were
similar in relation to the frequency of breastfeeding during the day and night,
the age of weaning and the breastmilk lactose content.
In this thesis he lists 6 of each references of studies showing very low rates
of dental caries in deciduous (first) teeth in skulls at least 200 years old
(Bentzen in Dental Cosmos 1929, Pedersen in Dental Record 1938, Moore and
Corbett in Caries Res 1971, Hojgaard in Scand J Dent Res 1980 and Keene in J
Dent Res 1986) and studies showing very low rates of dental caries in deciduous
teeth in children living in traditional cultures (Nicholis in Dent Reord 1914,
Sampson in Br Dent J 1932, Campbell and Gray in Aust J Dent 1936; Campbell twice
in Aust J Dent 1938 and Pedersen in Dent Record 1938)

And plain logical thinking shows that it is illogical to presume that the tool a
baby/toddler needs to survive will destroy the one he will be needing in the
rest of his life to survive. Let's stick to logic and the biologigal basis of
human survival and not be panicked by people who seem to desparately try to find
anything negative on breastfeeding.


Gonneke van Veldhuizen, IBCLC, living in Maaseik, Belgium
http://www.users.skynet.be/eurolac
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