Breastfeeding marks the child's teeth

A new study in Australia found breast-feeding with long-lasting marks on young teeth, according to The Australian.

That is the discovery of Professor Christine Austin and colleagues at the University of Sydney (Australia). They believe that when children consume barium-rich foods, this chemical will enter the young teeth, creating barium layers in tooth enamel, similar to wood grain.

Children's teeth show many interesting things - (Photo: Shutterstock)

When babies are still in the fetus, there are very few barium that are transmitted through the placenta. Therefore, when still developing under the gum, the infant's teeth have almost no trace of barium.

When a baby starts to breastfeed, which has barium, the chemical imprints into barium layers in the enamel. When children start eating solid foods, barium from plants and animal meat is less than in breast milk, so the trace of barium in the teeth will be less.

The team examined this hypothesis on monkey teeth and children 's teeth naturally fall out. They concluded that analyzing barium content in enamel layers was the correct way to determine when children began to eat solid and weaned foods.

The team applied this technique to the teeth of an 8-year-old Neanderthal, about 100,000 years old, found in Belgium.

When analyzing barium in teeth, they concluded that the infant had been exclusively breastfed for the first 7 months, was given solid food at 14 months of age and this was also the time when the baby was fully breastfed.