This condition, technically known as “early child caries,” is referred to in laymen’s terms as “baby bottle tooth decay.” However, it can result from nighttime feedings by bottle or breast.
The softer teeth of a young child are particularly vulnerable to these acids the end result can be tooth decay. Sugar feeds decay-causing oral bacteria, and these bacteria in turn release tooth-eroding acids. While breastfeeding offers an infant many health benefits, problems can occur when the natural sugars in breast milk are left in contact with teeth for long periods. DJ was often nursed to sleep, “so there were pools of breast milk that he could go to sleep with in his mouth,” Ramsey explained. Ramsey said DJ’s dentist suspected it had to do with the child’s feedings - not what he was being fed but how. “They had brown spots on them and they were brittle.” Those brown spots, he said, quickly turned into cavities. “His first teeth came in weak,” Ramsey recalled in a recent interview. This was the difficult lesson actor David Ramsey of the TV shows Arrow and Dexter learned when his son DJ’s teeth were first emerging. Cavities can happen even before a baby has his first piece of candy.
