[jodybird511]

So we took our soon-to-be-5-year-old to the dentist yesterday for her first "real" dental visit (we took her last year, but she wouldn't cooperate for anything other than the assistant to look in her mouth). Turns out she has THREE cavities! What?!? She's been with us since she was 4 months old and we take care of her dental hygiene! My friend that I talked to about it told me that she has a friend who adopted internationally and whose child has had many dental problems secondary to poor maternal nutrition during pregnancy. Is this going to be a lifelong curse for my little one? Anyone else dealing with this???

[DPline]

My son, adopted from Guatemala at age 20 months, has no enamel on his teeth and had 2 crowns by age 2. The dentist feels that it was probably caused by malnutrition on the part of his birthmother. I have a friend with a bio son who has no enamel on his adult teeth due to medication he received as an infant. Some children even with normal enamel are more prone to cavities than others for various reasons. So there can be many reasons for dental problems.

Personally, I would find a good pediatric dentist who can determine exactly what the issue is and what the course of action needs to be. We are just trying to keep my son's teeth as healthy as possible and praying that his adult teeth come in with enamel. Then we'll see where we have to go from there. For my friend, they are waiting until her son has all his adult teeth to get them capped, but in the mean time he has a serious of floride treatments and toothpastes that he uses to help as much as possible in the mean time.

Good luck!

[sunshinemommy]

Yes, my four girls all have very bad teeth. Due to neglect by their bioparents, never having been (except R) to a dentist and for M and B just not having the motor skills to be able to brush their teeth properly.

We are still waiting on a appointment date with the pedatric oral surgeon at the local children's hospital. B and M will be having cavities filled, root canals and possibly teeth removed under a general.

M also has poor enamel on her teeth, and she will be getting coating (?) on her teeth during the surgery...

[marykath]

Both my girls have terrible teeth. With the youngest, it's brown decay on the front teeth from birthmom letting her fall asleep at the breast while nursing. Birthmom also used meth while she was pregnant and nursing, so I am sure that didn't help matters.
Our oldest, adopted at birth, has even worse teeth. At 5 years old, she has had several cavities filled already. Her bmom also used meth.
The pediatric dentist told us not to feel as if it was our fault, and that good/bad teeth are pretty much determined by things like prenatal nutrition, bioparent history, etc.

[luvmykids4]

Please don't waste the precious energy of your life feeling bad about your child's teeth. I just went through this with my bio son who is six. My three older daughters did not have near the problems that my son had. I was so upset when I took him to the dentist. She was the one who actually 'calmed' me down. She said there are so many possible causes for tooth problems, and once your child has a cavity, the bacteria can spread, causing more cavities. It could be issues from in-utero, it could be the child's system, the shape of their teeth, etc. Just keep them going to the dentist, brush their teeth, and watch sweets within reason! There is so much more to being a good parent than teeth. Try not to stress and good luck!!

[Adoption_Ally]

My daughter was propped with a bottle for the first 23 months of her life, so her teeth were a MESS! The only ones that were NOT affected were the bottom four incisors - they're protected by the baby's tongue while they have the bottle in their mouth.

Please, please, PLEASE insist that your pediatric dentist save as many baby teeth as possible. We were lucky in that the dentist that did the work on M crowned all the bad teeth except the top four incisors. Those had to be pulled. She just turned 10, and only one of the top front teeth has started to come in. All her molars are fine because we saved the baby teeth.

[sagecrossroad]

Originally Posted by jodybird511

So we took our soon-to-be-5-year-old to the dentist yesterday for her first "real" dental visit (we took her last year, but she wouldn't cooperate for anything other than the assistant to look in her mouth). Turns out she has THREE cavities! What?!? She's been with us since she was 4 months old and we take care of her dental hygiene! My friend that I talked to about it told me that she has a friend who adopted internationally and whose child has had many dental problems secondary to poor maternal nutrition during pregnancy. Is this going to be a lifelong curse for my little one? Anyone else dealing with this???

I was a rebel mom when my kids were small. My two boys had their bottles until they were ready to give them up. They even had chocolate milk and went to sleep with bottles in their mouths. One had 1 cavity at 13, the other 1 at 10 but perfect teeth to date otherwise. And I enjoyed flaunting this to their dentist who frowned at me because he couldn't say a word.

But then came my daughter who seemed to have been born with horrible teeth. It wasn't due to poor prenatal nutrition or anything I ingested, it was from the RSV virus that she had at 6 weeks of age. And I finally found a dentist with enough knowledge to tell me this when she was 12. Some things have no cause or explaination, soft teeth can run in families, or a medicine or illness can damage enamel. Best of luck, the costs are outrageous.

~sagecrossroad~

[haileylove]

My daughter has terrible teeth. They are always yellow no matter how much she brushes. Her baby teeth were white, but her big girl (she's 7) teeth are just awful. I think this is correlated to drug use during utero.

[Barksum]

I'm with Sagecrossroad on this one. There are many, MANY contributing factors to how teeth form and what kind of 'health' one's teeth will have throughout life.

I have kids who were born addicted to their bio mom's drug of choice, I have one who was neglected for the first year. I have one who has slept with a bottle, and a couple who NEVER slept with the bottle. The one who was neglected has the worst teeth. Don't know why. Sometimes heredity comes into it, too, I suppose.

I do the best that I can with brushing and keeping up with the kids' teeth...but I can't make everything go the way I want it to, and that's just life.

[2Bmomagain]

My Biological son has had terrible problems with his teeth and we could never figure out why (he's 4). We just learned that he's having frequent occurences of acid reflux that we think is destroytng the enamel on his teeth. The pediatrician and dentist both feel this makes sense. We have him on medicine now for the acid reflux. Hopefully we've figured this out before his permanent teeth come in and this problem is under control. Doesn't help for the 8 cavities he has now (and the $1200 in dental work we had done prior). He had never told us he was having problems. He threw up like 4 times over the course of the last year when he wasn't really sick and no one else got sick. The one day it was obviously just stomach acid. The he told me he throws up in his mouth all the time. Oh. So we went to the pediatrician and that's how all of this came to light.

Just something else to consider. Hope this helps someone else avoid the problems we've had!

[2Bmomagain]

I should add that all of the decay on his teeth was on the inside and top surfaces of the teeth. No decay on the outside surfaces. My dentist said he should have realized it sooner because they see the same pattern on people with bulimia.