Night nursing & Cavities

Hi,
I am sure it depends on the child and their dental genes as well. My ds night nursed until he was 20 months and then weaned completely at 34 months. He did get two cavities in his two front teeth which we had filled. The cavities started forming back in his nursing days (he is now 3 1/2). He does not eat candy, drink juice etc. It kind of makes sense that it was night nursing but he also has my bad genes and my teeth have terrible enamel on them so perhaps it is due to that. One thing I can say is that he had greyish spots on these two teeth for a while so I was not shocked when they told us they were cavities.
The most important thing I would say is that I would not change how we nursed to prevent cavities. Nursing has so many other benefits. Good luck to you and yours.

You might post this in the nursing forum, you'll get a lot more responses.

Personally, I don't think so. Nursing is a natural function and it doesn't make sense that it would cause cavities. I do not believe it!

What I do believe is that if the mother is deficient in certain nutrients while pregnant then her child will develop poor enamel on the teeth and is much more likely to getting cavities.

I've read about a link between the mother's dental health while pregnant and the infants teeth. My teath are good and my ds just stopped night nursing a couple of months ago (he's 3.3). he just had a checkup and his teeth are perfect.

I met a mother once who's ds is the same age as mine (2.5 at the time). They followed the same pattern of all night nursing as us and her son has bad teeth. Everyone told her it was the nursing but her dentist told her that it had more to do with her own oral health while pregnant (bad) and juice in a sip cup. She was advised by the dentist to stop the juice and continue the nursing. She had several cavities while pregnant that she didn't get filled.

I don't have any references for the link btwn mom and baby oral health but I'll look.

I had awesome dental health during pregnancy, have brushed her teeth twice a day since she was 6 months old, don't have any cavities myself, and don't give my daughter (2) juice. But she has cavities which may or may be due to night nursing. I am also diabetic, so it may be due to the difference in my milk?

If you haven't read this thread on the dental forum, I highly recommend you do, it is full of excellent information:

Curing Cavities with Nutrition: http://www.mothering.com/discussions...d.php?t=399989