infant caries and mom's diet?

[beccaroo]

This is long, but I'll get to the real question eventually ...

The three pediatric dentists we've seen say night-nursing is the cause of the cavities my 3yr old dd has had for almost 2 years. Yesterday at our visit, the dentist only talked about plain old nursing - not even qualifying night-time nursing. Didn't ask how often we brush her teeth, how often she has juice, how many sweets or cookies/cracker she eats. Just if she has a bottle or nurses, which has me a bit steamed.

I don't want to believe the dentists, but I also don't want to ruin my daughter's teeth out of stubborness. If it were just up to me I wouldn't exactly mind weaning her now. I'd be sad, but there are several times each week that I'm ready for it to be done. But she doesn't seem ready at all.

In the last year we've tried to have a rule about no nursing after she brushes her teeth (a concession to the dentists, and in the hopes of sleeping thru the night - to no avail). The rule is waived when she's sick or occasionally when she didn't eat well at dinner so we know she's hungry. Last night was one of those nights where she's so tired she fell asleep while nursing and we didn't have the heart to wake her. (And feared the tantrum She's been fighting some bug and has been touchy. Then she woke at night and was inconsolable. I tried other ways to calm her, then after both sobbing about it gave in and nursed her. Now I was crying out of guilt. Both that I'd kept it from her as long as I did since it calmed her so quickly, and that I was 'ruining' her teeth by giving it to her.

I feel better when I read the things on kellymom.com and from Dr. Brian Palmer. But I was a little bothered to see SO many posts here about other nursing kids that are going through this. I tried to check babycenter.com for more non-nursing posts, but there they were mostly night-nursing or giving bottles in bed. I was hoping to see posts from people whose kids had cavities but hadn't done either.

I'll admit, my daughter hasn't had the best diet. But it's by no means the worst in this day and age. Mine, however, is pretty bad. Way too much of my diet is pure sugar - sodas, candy, ice cream. I'm wondering if my milk might be more sugary (or acidic?) than it's supposed to be, and if that's making my kids more susceptible, even though they don't consume as much sugar?

We also wonder about shared bacteria ('cleaning' a dropped pacifier by popping it in our mouths when she was a baby, slobbery kisses, etc), and poor dental hygiene and lousy snack-foods early on. Around 10 mo old, we weren't brushing her teeth realiably because she struggled so much. And she was eating crackers and some 'dissolvable' baby snacks that we later realized seemed to leave a film. There were times when I realize it had been DAYS since I'd brushed her teeth at night, thinking at least DH had been doing it at least in the morning but realizing later that he hadn't either. A few months later we noticed the decay. We've been much more vigilant about brushing since. It's been 2 years since our first visit, and the dentists haven't been able to say that it's gotten worse in that time period. And I continued to nurse her on demand at night for another year despite their advice.

Can any of you other moms going through this pinpoint anything that would make your case different that than other nursing moms with kids with healthy teeth?

I'm not trying to put blame on the moms here. But I think most of us have been blamed already - for night-nursing. And to me that still feels like a natural thing that I don't want to blame.

P.S. I know I should cut back on the sugar for tons of other reasons. I'm working on it. If there's a correlation here, hopefully it will give me enough extra motivation to stick to it.

Sorry for the book-length post!

[JaneS]

Originally Posted by beccaroo

I'll admit, my daughter hasn't had the best diet. But it's by no means the worst in this day and age. Mine, however, is pretty bad. Way too much of my diet is pure sugar - sodas, candy, ice cream. I'm wondering if my milk might be more sugary (or acidic?) than it's supposed to be, and if that's making my kids more susceptible, even though they don't consume as much sugar?

It's your milk but not in the way you are thinking.

The diet you describe means your body is most definately deficient in minerals and probably vitamins as well. If you were following this diet while pregnant, it's not just breastmilk that could have been effecting her teeth.

White sugar and all processed foods contain no nutrients, so they require the body to give up minerals to process them. So not only are you replacing healthy foods in your daily diet that could nourish you with processed foods, you are burning up the already small stores of minerals you have.

I take great offense at KellyMom's advice that one can consume a diet of junk food and have perfect milk. I think she has done babes a HUGE disservice by touting this. Research studies have shown this is simply not true. A recent Mothering Mag article exposes this as a myth of bf'ing. There is a long thread in Breastfeeding on nutrition where this is discussed:

http://www.mothering.com/discussions...d.php?t=343188

Teeth are like bones, they require minerals to be strong.

Originally Posted by beccaroo

We also wonder about shared bacteria ('cleaning' a dropped pacifier by popping it in our mouths when she was a baby, slobbery kisses, etc), and poor dental hygiene and lousy snack-foods early on. Around 10 mo old, we weren't brushing her teeth realiably because she struggled so much. And she was eating crackers and some 'dissolvable' baby snacks that we later realized seemed to leave a film. There were times when I realize it had been DAYS since I'd brushed her teeth at night, thinking at least DH had been doing it at least in the morning but realizing later that he hadn't either. A few months later we noticed the decay. We've been much more vigilant about brushing since. It's been 2 years since our first visit, and the dentists haven't been able to say that it's gotten worse in that time period. And I continued to nurse her on demand at night for another year despite their advice.

See "Curing Cavities with Nutrition" thread in this forum.

I highly recommend you read the book "Nutrition and Physical Degeneration" by Weston Price. It will change your life:
http://www.westonaprice.org/traditio...ry_wisdom.html

His work has disproved the bacterial theory and the tooth brushing theory... the cause of cavities goes deeper than that. Proper nutrition reduces bacterial counts in the mouth and native people with native diets who NEVER brushed their teeth still had no cavities.

Which is not to say that you should never brush your teeth again but to underscore the importance of little known information. Our bodies were not designed to be healthy on a processed foods diet.

Search on toraji's posts, she's been through it and posted a great deal about it.

[JaneS]

and I don't mean to be harsh sounding at all, hope I don't come across that way.

[Reha]

Hi there,

I thought I would add my experience. I ate suberbly well during my pregnancy, very little (if any) refined sugar and white flour, lots of whole foods, fresh veggies and fruits, etc.

And I still eat that way.

My son is now 2, and about 5 months after his first teeth come in (so around 1 year), I noticed early signs of decay on his top front 4 teeth. HE now has all but 1 of his teeth,a nd the top 4 front teeth have gootn MUCH worse, and all his other teeth have that white "pre"decay on them, which I think has been staved off from using a xylitol gel on his teeth.

He is still breastfeedin on demand, including at night. And, we have never used fluoride (and don't plan on it either).

I have talked with many many mothers with more than 1 child, and they have parented all kids the same (in regards to nutrtion and nursing), and some of their kids have PERFECT teeth, and others have teeth that seem to just be falling apart.

It makes SENSE to me that it is nutrition, and also that poor nutrition over generations is probably even more important. Both of my parents have horrible teeth and mine aren't that great either, and both of my parents were raised on a typical white bread american diet. I don't really think that we can correct our deep deficiences that have been caused from 2-3 generations back (And persisted until me) in just a few short years of starting to eat right. I now that this has been shown in experiments with cats, where the mother cat was severely nutrient deficient, and gave birth to a litter of kittens. When those kittens grew to have more kittens (even though they were nourished, unlike their mother) their kittens showed signs of deficiency, and it was even more dramatic 1 more generation out. Anyways, this makes sense to me.

I am extremly confused about what it the right thing to do about my son's teeth. I feel very blessed that his organs are healthy and that he has a brilliant brain that works great, but it is so hard to see his teeth with so much decay at such a young age.

Anyways, those are just my thoughts.

[JaneS]

The experiment you are talking about is Pottenger's cats:
http://www.price-pottenger.org/Articles/PottsCats.html

Weston Price's book also speaks to the passing on thru the generations issue.

[Reha]

Thanks for that link!

[Warda_Rose]

I've been wondering the same thing...

My 2.5yo BF (for 23mo.s) daughter has really bad teeth. They tend to run in my family for the baby teeth, but hers are the worst so far. I've started to brushs her teeth with baking soda/salt at the nightime brushing to try to neutralize the acids/bacteria and I got some cod liver oil, molasses and vitamin C powder that I want to supplement her and my older daughter with. The trouble is they taste so horrible! (I'm taking them myself). How will i get a 2.5 and a 7 yo to take 'em?
Will they help? I'm not TOO worried about her baby teeth but I want to correct the problem before it gets to her permanents, and keep the same thing from happening with the (soon to be) new one.
PS: I read the article that BF'ing and night nursing doesn't ruin their teeth today and felt better. My mom's been telling me that all along but it's nice to read it in black and white.