STOP BREASTFEEDING AT 6 MONTHS says my dentist. 'You're luck your dd hasn't got rotting teeth', she says.

[drosophila]

She admitted this view is unpopular but after 6 mths there is a risk to the teeth. I only mentioned I Bfed DD til she was 2 as I was worried about her calcium level given that she will only drink water.

Anyway thought MN would enjoy debating this one.

Fair enough. Will immediately stop bfing DD and give her mountain spring water instead

lol

yeah, bring on the mn dentists - where are they all hiding??

They're all hiding behind the sofa, secretly scarfing raisins.

I did a quick Pubmed search on this, and the latest papers seem to agree that bfing does not increase the rate of tooth decay Pediatrics 2007 and Caries research 2007. These are papers based on big groups, so should be reasonably solid data. From some of the other abstracts it seems that bm has been found to not cause decay in the same way as cows milk for instance.

I do wonder though if Bfeeding has given dd a penchant for choc. Guess what I didn't tell the dentist that.

Think you have a strange dentist there. I have been a dental nurse for 10 years and never heard this recommended

well yes exactly nappiesgaloriainexcelsis.

we wouldn't have any teeth at all if breastmilk rotted them. i suspect it has an opposite effect, being sterile and ideal and all that.

Nothing to debate here.Go to another dentist.

breastfed babies don't feed in the same way as ff babies - the milk doesn't pool in the mouth at night: the nipple is too far back on the soft palate and the milk goes straight down the throat.

If you go back to this dentist - do ask her for some recent studies to back up her stance and also ask her why early tooth decay is absolutely rampant in the communities in which bottlefeeding is the norm, and extremely rare in communities where babies are breastfed for longest.........

Certainly in the UK there's a direct correlation between dental health, breastfeeding and social class: the children from the best off families (who are also those most likely to be breastfed past a year) are also those least likely to have dental caries.

My dd breasfed for nearly 3 years and fed in the night for most of that time and has no fillings at all (she's 10 now). Sounds like rubbish to me!

Please feel free to add it to the list of negative things HCPs say about bfing on my blog...

Mad as snakes.

BF at night does increase the risk of decay but only slightly. Bottle feeding significantly more so. In the best interests of teeth nothing other than water should touch them at night, because our saliva rate drops during this time making teeth more prone to decay.

One of the other factors you need to take into account when looking at the decay rate in countries where bf is higher compared to high rates of formula feeding is other dietary factors, more ddeveloped countries where formula is more common also have a more processed diet, where as poorer countries with higher bf rates have a less processed more basic unrefined diet.

LOL I knew as soon as a dentist came one here everyone would bu**er off

I know I've mentioned this before but...

My mom had 4 kids. 1 she bottle fed, 3 were breastfed for 2 - 4 years. Only ONE child had bad baby teeth (unfortunately it was ME) and i was BF for 2 years.
and i have bad adult teeth too.

Ewwwwwwwwwwwww!

Most things can be bad for you even things that are good. I was told by a dental hygienist that eating fruit at regular intervals was just as bad as chomping on boiled sweets and yet for the rest of my body eating fruit is obviously the best thing you can do. You can't win.

TBH I think my dentist would prefer it if we all ate through oesophagostomy tubes. I bet if we did he'd still moan that I wasn't flossing enough.