Milk causes rotten teeth?

sofababe

My neighbour's 7 year old son has been in hospital today having 4 teeth extracted and another one filled. She claims he doesn't eat sugar and his teeth have rotted due to drinking lots of milk. She also reckoned the dentist told her this is a common problem in breast fed babies!!
I've never heard of babies or young children having teeth extracted for this reason.
Now, surely, breast milk is designed to provide everything a baby needs so why would humans have evolved to produce tooth-rotting milk. I don't imagine there are any other mammals whose breast milk makes their young have rotten teeth. I think this is nonsense.
Lactose is, of course, a sugar and as such will eventually cause problems if teeth aren't cleaned, just like any other sugar. My children had a toothbrush as soon as their teeth started showing through the gum, and had a proper brushing routine when the teeth erupted at about 6 months of age. They never had any trouble, and are now both adults with no fillings.
Frankly, I think my neighbour is full of carp and hasn't looked after her boy's dental health properly. I will not be calling her a liar, but I'm thinking it!:o
Perhaps one of the brilliant dentists here will confirm or deny my theory.

Toothsmith

Milk, and breast milk in particular is a bit of a grey area.

How long was he breast fed for? And was he 'fed to sleep' i.e. fed until he dropped off to sleep. Doing this can make an otherwise good thing bad. (Because the milk will be against the tooth for far too long if they fall asleep whilst drinking)

This is quite a good article

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/002061.htm

You will see from that, that although breast milk is good, breast milk plus sugary food is worse than sugary food on its own!

So - the longer breast feeding goes on, as more 'normal' food is introduced, that food is likely to do more damage than if breast feeding had stopped.

There are those that champion extended breast feeding. If that happens though, you really must be very careful about what is fed to the child alongside the milk.

brook2jack

A child of seven will long since have finished breast feeding and indeed the back teeth don't come through until long after milk feeding has finished.

More particularly early decay can be stopped from progressing by careful diet and use of fluoride toothpaste and varnishes..

Unfortunately sugar is not the only culprit for decay, fruit juice, dried fruit, yoghurt, all cause decay. There is also a big problem amongst health concious mums not using fluoride containing toothpaste.

In my area 50% of five year olds have decayed teeth and in the UK tooth decay is the third most common for children's hospital admissions so your neighbour is not alone in making poor choices.

POPPYOSCAR

My dentist told me that pretty much every drink was bad for my children's teeth!!

And yes milk was one of the major ones.


I was told to dilute fresh fruit juice with water but even that was not really looked on as being suitable.

The only thing left was plain water!!!

My dentist also told me that crisps are one of the worst things especially quavers.

brook2jack

Cows milk with nothing in it is fine. Soya milk, oat milk, rice milk lots of sugar.

Fruit juice has as much sugar as many fizzy drinks.

Drink what you like with a meal but in between sugar free

So water, tea (not fruit tea) , milk , plain coffee .

Toothsmith

brook2jack wrote: »

A child of seven will long since have finished breast feeding

Not always a safe assumption!

sofababe

Toothsmith wrote: »

Milk, and breast milk in particular is a bit of a grey area.

How long was he breast fed for?

He wasn't! She is claiming that the (presumably) cow's milk he drinks is to blame. The dentist she saw for this diagnosis also told her that breastfeeding after a child's teeth have come through is a common cause of tooth decay. I would argue that this would only be true where bad oral hygiene was practised.

I'm convinced that any drink or food containing sugars, either naturally present or added, will lead to tooth decay IF proper cleaning isn't happening. My neighbour was trying to say that breastfeeding is bad for babies' teeth. By the time most babies have teeth they have moved on to mixed feeding and you would hope a teeth cleaning regime. If my neighbour's "theory" was correct any child breastfed beyond six months would have rotten teeth. I know plenty of children who were breastfed for at least a year and they have perfectly healthy teeth.

My best fried was talking about her teeth at the weekend, saying that as a child she drank lots of milk and ate lots of cheese and dairy foods, and she's never had a filling in her 47 years. I'm the same.

Poppyoscar mentioned crisps. Is it correct to assume that the damage is caused by crisps sticking to the teeth and the carbohydrate breaking down into sugars?

Really, if we all believed everything we read and hear about food and drink being harmful to us we'd all starve to death.

GwylimT

It depends on the child as well, my wife has horrendous teeth, she has more fillings than teeth, unfortunately our daughter seems to have 'her' teeth as they are soft and her enamel is quite thin, so they also look very yellow and stain very easily. We are much more careful with her and if she does have anything sugary we make sure she has a drink of water afterwards, she doesn't have any decay yet on her milk teeth, but with the way they are unfortunately we wont be saying that for long.

Milk is full of sugar, that is why it tastes so sweet, its the same with breast milk, if you have milk sat in your mouth it is going to cause damage, those teeth need a good rinse.

tyllwyd

I've heard it said that it's not so much the sugar that's a problem, it's the amount of time it's in contact with the teeth. So milk in a glass that's drunk in a few minutes would be less damaging than the same amount in a bottle but which is kept in the mouth and sucked on over for half an hour. So letting a child use a bottle of milk as a dummy might be the problem, or letting them take it to bed with them.

nyc_451

I have a question about rotten teeth but didn't want to create a new thread for that.

Why is it that the tooth sometimes looks fine from the outside, there is no pain, and then it falls out and you see it being rotten from the inside?...

brook2jack

Cows milk(lactose) does not cause decay and indeed chewing a piece of cheese after sugary stuff helps to neutralise the acid and prevent decay.

It doesn't matter if you brush 47 times a day it's the frequency that anything sugary is eaten or drunk that causes decay. Each time you eat or drink something sugary it takes an hour for the acid to go , so eating or drinking anything sugary more than three times a day is likely to lead to decay , even if you brush directly afterward. Decay is more related to having lots of sugar attacks a day e.g. sipping on a sports drink or fruit juice , sucking on mints , sugar in tea and coffee , than bad oral hygiene. Cleaning has a part to play but lots of sugar attacks equals lots of decay.

Eating and drinking anything before bedtime or during the night (except water) also is dangerous for teeth.

The average person in the UK eats seven times a day.

Crisps indeed not only often have sugar in them but also break down to form sugar.

Rinsing your mouth with water after sugary foods or drinks will not prevent decay ,it doesn't neutralise acid. Keep sugary foods and snacks to mealtimes and nothing sugary in between.

Unfortunately apart from a few rare syndromes there is no such thing as weak enamel. 98% of all dental treatment is entirely preventable. Sensible diet, using a fluoride toothpaste (adult for over three year olds for the extra fluoride) , seeing a dentist from birth who will fluoride varnish and fissure seal teeth if necessary, supervising brushing until a child is at least eight will prevent any treatment being necessary unless there are medical or behavioural problems that complicate things.

Bottles cause decay because the children constantly sip at the sugary drinks and so their front teeth are constantly bathed in sugar.

Cows milk is fine and doesn't cause decay, soya milk, rice milk etc are very sugary and easily can.

Decay often starts where it can't be seen with the naked eye. It's why dentists take x rays to find this hidden decay.

Here is useful advice for preventing decay in children.
http://www.google.co.uk/url?q=http://www.dentalhealth.org/uploads/download/resourcefiles/download_42_1_Protecting_Toddlers_from_Tooth_Decay.pdf&sa=U&ei=cT2NUvLmEpOshQf2iIDwBg&ved=0CEQQFjAI&sig2=cgnh_huAxnDJToZRhDQnrw&usg=AFQjCNEnaaHZHrsGaCKPLBRh2IJwRylG8Q