What a bad day for me. I'm literally in tears over something so stupid....
My younger son (2) is developing a bad case of baby bottle tooth decay. So I called to try to get an appointment with the only pediatric dentist within an 80 mile radius of where we live.... they won't accept him since he's a Medicaid patient (they only take a limited number, and everyone knows this is b/c Mcaid pays less for their services) - even if I offered to pay the difference in what they'd charge, or pay the whole thing out of pocket (apparently that's illegal).
I'm so upset about it. I already feel like a terrible mama, and now I feel even worse that I can't even get my son decent health care coverage. The system is so screwed up.
Sorry to rant about this here, I just had to let that out somewhere.
Try not to be so hard on yourself. Doctors/dentists are actually getting away from calling it "baby bottle mouth" because they're beginning to realize it's not *caused* by bottles, but by a bacterial infection (strep mutans. If your child has this bacteria present in his/her mouth, then it would be unlikely for him to NOT have tooth decay at some point, in spite of how well you practice dental hygiene.
The best preventative for S. mutans infection is to not share spoons, straws, or anything that would transfer bacteria from your mouth into baby's mouth (because transfer usually comes from the child's primary caregiver). These precautions need to be taken until around age 3-4, at which point the child's mouth is fully colonized and it's very unlikely that S. mutans will colonize.
