tooth decay in breastfed / co-sleeping baby

[barbareebaa]

hello!
My 6 month old boy has now got nearly 6 teeth and I'm wondering if his frequent feeding throughout the night is likely to damage them.
I clean them twice a day with low fluoride toothpaste.
Just wondered if anyone had any experience/ advice?
TIA
Bx
p.s they look like they have little white lines on - I know this could be symptom of fluoriosis and decay or is this usual in newly aquired teeth?

bump

My understanding is that the action of breastfeeding requires the nipple to be far back in the mouth. Milk tends not to drip out of the breast when the baby is not actively sucking, certainly not after the first few minutes. Both these points tend to mean that milk does not pool in the mouth in the same way as with a bottle fed baby.
However, breastfeeding is no guarantee that your little one will not have tooth decay. Sounds like you are doing the right thing re cleaning the teeth, not much paste required. When weaning it's probably helpful to make sure that foods are not high in sugar, remembering that fructose and glucose are 'sugars' too, for purposes of tooth decay.
Not sure re the lines. Baby teeth are formed early on in pregnancy, and can be affected by mother's illnesses and antibiotics. Some children have defective enamel, which allows decay to take hold if cleaning is not scrupulous. There is an Irish dentist, Harry Torney, who has done some research into breastfeeding and child tooth decay, you could try to google him.

Bit rushed, but try looking on this site. It's not the best structured, but has good info on bf and teeth/oral development. Scroll down and look for infant caries.

In short, no night feeds should not cause tooth decay.

Thank you for the information and advice - the website is really interesting!
The harry Torney study was very reassuring - they concluded that there is a 2% chance of decay being caused by breastfeeding so will continue as I was!!
Thanks!
Bx

My little boy fed loads in the night until he was well into his secodn year, and even now at just turned 2 he still occasionally has a 4am top-up. As our dentist has confirmed, his teeth are perfect, with no sign of decay.

Lots of good linkies here and this is another good article with scientific references.

I thought you should only brush teeth once a day at this age.