Abstract
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM: Severe early childhood caries (S-ECC) is common among infants and toddlers. It has many problems and challenges for families as well as dentists in fields of prevention and treatment. PURPOSE: The study aimed to investigate the relationship between occurrence of S-ECC and level of lactose in breast milk, in infants aged 12 to 24 months. MATERIALS AND METHOD: This cross-sectional descriptive-analytical study was carried out from April to July 2020 on 30 children aged 12 to 24 months with or without S-ECC, who were sol-ely breastfed; their mothers answered questions about their breastfeeding habits. After the child's dental visit, the mother was asked to express 10 to 20ml of her milk as a sample and give it to the researchers. The samples were immediately kept at -4°C and then they were tested for lactose measurement. Finally, the test results were analyzed by SPSS 21 software using independent t-test. RESULTS: The average amount of lactose in the breast milk of cases with S-ECC infant was 5.74g/100 ml and the average amount of lactose in the breast milk of cases without S-ECC infant was 4.64g/100 ml. There was no significant difference in lactose concentration between the two groups (p Value=0.64). The average number of breastfeeding times in cases with S-ECC infants was 7.87 per day while in the healthy cases this was 7.33 per day. There was no significant difference between the numbers of breastfeeding times per day in two groups. CONCLUSION: According to this study, the amount of lactose in breast milk of children with S-ECC was slightly higher than the amount of lactose in breast milk in children with healthy teeth.