My Baby Stole the Calcium from my Teeth!

While not exactly com­mon, it is also not unusual for us to hear a woman say, “Doc, I never had any cav­i­ties until after my baby; I heard that the baby steals the cal­cium from teeth before they’re born.  What do I do?”

Can Your Baby “Steal” Cal­cium from Your Teeth to Cause Cavities?

The sim­ple answer to the ques­tion is good news: “NO!”  The more com­pli­cated answer is, “Well, kind of.”   How?

First of all, if you think about it, there is no way for a baby to “steal” the cal­cium or phos­phates or flu­o­ride from your teeth.  I mean, how could that hap­pen?  The min­er­als some­how get sucked through the nerve cham­bers in your teeth, into the blood stream, and to the baby in the womb or to breast milk?  Not likely!  OK, so how about the min­er­als some­how get sucked out of the teeth into your saliva, down into your stom­ach, get absorbed, and then to the baby?  Again, not gonna happen!

So Why Do New Moth­ers Get More Cavities?

The answer is remark­ably sim­ple, but so often over­looked: stom­ach acid via acid reflux!  Doesn’t that just make sense really?  Just con­sider these items:

1. Most women expe­ri­ence sig­nif­i­cant nau­sea dur­ing preg­nancy — daily expo­sure of the teeth to stom­ach acid when you throw up will cause seri­ous prob­lems if it is for months on end.
2. All that pres­sure on your insides pushes the acid into the esoph­a­gus, espe­cially as the baby grows and starts kick­ing; espe­cially if this hap­pens at night, that acid­ity will just sit in your mouth for hours at a time, far worse than soda.
3. The nau­sea can make it dif­fi­cult to brush your teeth, sim­ply because the taste and feel of the tooth­paste can trig­ger nausea.
4. If you’ve had more than 1 baby, mul­ti­ply every­thing above times the num­ber of babies!

So now you know why your baby didn’t “steal” the cal­cium from your teeth and cause cav­i­ties, but now you want to know:

7  Ways Keep My Teeth Healthy Dur­ing Preg­nancy and After a Baby?

There are a few very sim­ple and effec­tive ways to pre­vent cav­i­ties dur­ing and after pregnancy:

1. Make sure you brush and floss at least twice/day, more if possible
2. If you throw up, rinse your mouth with water and spit right away — the longer the acid sits on the teeth, the worse the damage
3. REALLY try to avoid acidic foods and drinks, such as tomato sauces, orange and fruit juices, sodas, etc.  This is like mul­ti­ply­ing the problem.
4. Do NOT use abra­sive tooth­pastes, such as those that pro­mote whitening
5. Reg­u­larly use chew­ing gum with Xyl­i­tol sweet­ener, which bac­te­ria can’t process.  Chew­ing gum stim­u­lates saliva to wash the acid­ity away.
6. Use an over-the-counter fluoride-containing mouthrinse like ACT (not some­thing with alco­hol, such as Lis­ter­ine or Scope).
7. Talk with your den­tist about a rem­iner­al­iz­ing paste such as MI Paste Plus, which helps put back cal­cium, phos­phates, and flu­o­ride to keep your teeth strong.

OK, there you go!  Babies don’t cause cav­i­ties, but all that nau­sea and/or acid reflux dur­ing and after preg­nancy sure can, but you can stop them!

To make an appoint­ment for a Com­pli­men­tary Consultation:

Request an Appoint­ment Online or call us at 704–364-7069.

We’ll look for­ward to meet­ing you soon!