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	growing child child health

Myths And Facts About Cavities

I am still amazed when I stumble across some truth in an old wives' tale. The three anecdotal tales that I hear most often from my dental patients all contain grains of truth.

1. "My whole family has soft teeth." There are genetic conditions that render teeth soft, but they usually result in profound and early tooth loss. When people refer to "soft teeth" they mean high dental decay rates. High decay rates do run in families and are usually passed from mother to child, generation to generation. This is because high decay rates are a result of virulent dental bacteria that are passed from mother to child when the infant's primary teeth are cut, between 6 and 30 months of age.

2. "I had good teeth until the baby sucked the calcium from my teeth." Or, "I never had cavities until I had my baby." In fact, pregnancy can upset the balance of normal dental flora. This may result in shifts in subpopulations of the 6 billion bacteria that inhabit normal mouths. In other words, changes in the oral environment can select for the cavity-causing bacteria while suppressing the numbers of benign flora. Recovery of the mother's dental flora to a pre-pregnancy state begins after delivery and can take up to two years.

3. "If babies get their teeth late, their teeth will be stronger." Stronger implies less prone to decay and again this is true. An infant cannot be colonized with his mom's dental flora until he cuts teeth. The later the teeth are cut, the greater amount of time the mother's dental flora has had to recover from pregnancy. The condition of the mother's dental flora at the time of transmission of the bacteria will profoundly impact the child's predisposition to decay.

Kevin Hale is a pediatric dentist in Brighton, Michigan.