Stopping mother’s oral microbes may be the key to dental health of the child. “At the University of Alabama, Dr. Page Caufield

and his team are following the children of 500

women who carry very harmful strains of

Streptococcus mutans, the bacteria that cause

cavities. Half the women had their teeth treated

with an antiseptic and varnished during their

children’s “window of infectivity,” when about

80 percent of babies pick up S. mutans from their

mothers. This is at about two years of age, when

the babies’ back teeth grow in. If these 250

children grow up free of the S. mutans strains

that have plagued their mothers’ teeth, dentists

will have a powerful new tool.”