Nursing Bottle Caries

Abstract

The report of Shelton et al. on nursing bottle caries (Pediatrics 59:777, May 1977), which was described as a "devastating condition that may render young children dental cripples," was of great interest to us. We have recently made a study of dental caries and sucrose intake in a series of South African black and white preschool children. The condition so lucidly described by the above workers is identical to the labial caries noted in the canine and incisor teeth in our groups.1 In children under 3 years, the prevalence of labial caries in a black rural group of 109 children was 12.8%; this proportion was not significantly greater than found in 122 white urban children, namely, 9.8%.