DR. SAM, ANGELA DDS, or any dentist.. question about calcium, teeth, cavities, and feeding babies.?

Is it true that if while breast feeding a baby it sucks out a woman's calcium and makes her more prone to cavities and decay? My dad is a dentist and he hears this all the time and ADAMENTLY denies it. he insists it is folklore and just an excuse woman have for not brushing and taking care of their teeth properly. But is this really true? Is it really just a coincidence that in some instances woman who are post-pregnancy have unusually high amounts of cavities and are breast feeding? I just have the feeling that it is true that woman lose calcium while breast feeding and it causes thier teeth to decay. Of course, I am def. not a dentist, but this phenomena makes sense to me.





also, if you could recommend any places to do research, any published research, or any published texts on this issue, it would be great, thanks.

DR. SAM, ANGELA DDS, or any dentist.. question about calcium, teeth, cavities, and feeding babies.?
no it is not true,





When your body is low on calcium it mobilizes calcium from your bones, by disolving it and extracting the calcium into your blood stream. Your blood is what your calcium is transported to other parts of your body that need it in.





calcium is not able to be transported from the teeth because you need a good blood supply to do this, and because most of the calcium is located in the enamel of the tooth (the outer shell) which has no blood supply at all, your body does not have a mechanism to move it into the blood so calcium in the teeth remains there even when you are low in calcium (possibly from breast feeding)





Generally, decay in pregnant women can be related to large changes in diet and frequency of eating (cravings etc) If the mother already didn't look after her teeth properly, all the extra food and change in diet gives the bacteria that cause decay a field day and they go nuts eating away at all the extra food.





Decay is not caused by calcium deficiencies, it is caused by bacteria eating food and releasing acid over your teeth, which then eats away at your tooth.





on a side note, one very well established link between pregnancy and oral health (not to do with breast feeding at all) is gum disease. Because pregnancy causes the hormone levels to change, the way your body reacts to infection is changed. So if you don't clean the plaque away from your gums your body will have an exaggerated reaction making your gums red and puffy.