Baby Bottle Tooth Decay
New parents naturally want to know what they need to do to care for their child’s oral health. Maintaining hygiene is indeed important from a very early age, and at Dr. Vijay Munagala’s Castro Valley office, we want parents to understand why Baby Bottle Tooth Decay is of particular concern. Tooth decay occurs when bacteria eat food debris and secrete acid, which gets stuck to our teeth. This can happen from the moment the first teeth push through a baby’s gum line. Typically, the incisors, or front teeth, erupt first. As babies drink from bottles, sugar gets stuck to the fronts of their incisors, resulting in a distinctive pattern of decay. What makes the use of bottles particularly risky is that babies are often left to drink from them for hours at a time. This means that their saliva never has an opportunity to remove sugar from their teeth for long before new sugar is applied. To lessen the likelihood of decay, don’t let babies have bottles for longer than about twenty minutes, give