X's top two teeth have always been a little mottled. Well, not always, but for a very long time. His pediatricians have seen it, the community health nurse took note, but no one seemed overly alarmed. Fluoride was prescribed, I was told to brush his teeth daily & I was given a general warning not to let him sleep on the boob, but that was it. He never eats sugar of any kind & doesn't "sleep on the breast" since I am typically so eager to get him off of me, as soon as he's done I pop him off & flip him over. I figured if I did all these things he should be fine.
At his 15 month appointment Dr. Pritchard seemed a little worried about the progress of decay & told us to get him in to see a dentist. We had no idea how bad things could be until our 1st few minutes with Dr. Pelley:
"His top four teeth are full of cavities. We'll need to put him under general anesthesia & pull them."
"Whaaaa??" M & I were totally shaken. How on earth could we have failed him this miserably? Why did none of our doctors sound an alarm? How could we not see this coming?
"Are you still nursing him at night?", Dr. Pelley asked. "You should really consider night weaning him as soon as possible. As long as none of your bad habits change, he is going to have dental decay"
"Let me get this straight -if I night wean him, will his teeth be repairable? -or is the damage already done? Wouldn't night weaning him be piling on one more layer of trauma in addition to the trauma of putting him under & pulling his four central teeth??" I asked, appalled that she would dare to criticize my breastfeeding relationship with X. He got his first tooth at four months -should I have weaned him then? -I was shocked that I was basically being blamed for this horror that was in store for my sweet boy.
We dialogued with Dr. Pelley briefly. She backed off a bit from her more aggressive treatment option & suggested that we could take a wait and see approach & give him monthly fluoride treatments until his 2nd birthday & then reconsider. We agreed with that option, scheduled our appointment for the following month & scurried out the door feeling battered, horrified, guilty & stressed.
How could we fail so miserably? -Why were we not paying closer attention? -Neither of us could sleep that night, & the days that followed on had us both googling nonstop, trying to get to the bottom of what was happening in our sons mouth. Should I wean him? -Was this milk that I thought was "nature's perfect food" really rotting his teeth? -How could that be? -4,000+ mammal species & humans alone have milk that rots the teeth of their young? -Wouldn't evolution select against that trait? -It just doesn't make sense....
In any case, I learned way more about dental health this week than I ever hoped to know...
1 comment:
Isn't the question not whether the milk is nature's perfect food, but when it is consumed? They say babies don't "need" food at night after five months or so. And the night consumption promotes cavities b/c it is just sitting there. That's also why they don't recommend letting kids go to bed with a bottle. We disregarded the bedtime bottle advice for quite a long time, b/c the sleep we got as a result of it was worth it to us. Hopefully the fact that R sucks it down immediately and then tosses the bottle out of the crib (so he's not sucking on it at night) will minimize any harm. I guess we'll see what the price is when we eventually take him to the dentist. So sorry you have to deal with this stress.
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