Your First Teeth

The teething process is always a somewhat stressful time, both for parents and for the baby. There are many theories and myths surrounding this completely natural process. Some babies get their first tooth as early as four months, while others don’t have any by the time they’re one year old. The “delay” in the appearance of the first tooth has nothing to do with calcium deficiency, contrary to what many people believe. The truth is that the process adapts to the baby’s diet; the first teeth to appear are the incisors, which are perfect for cutting soft foods like vegetables and fruit. Later, the canines and molars will appear, allowing the baby to chew harder foods like meat.

All babies go through a rough patch to some extent, but this is a perfectly natural process that generally doesn't require intervention.

The process:
Teeth, composed of enamel—the hardest material in our bodies—pierce through the bones of the lower and upper jaws and then through the soft tissues of the gums. Any piercing process generates debris, and the body is no exception:
1. The procedure is usually painful: drilling through bones hurts.
2. “Debris”—dead bone and gum cells—is produced.
3. The number of bacteria in the area increases; bacteria are organisms that occur naturally in our bodies, and their job is simple: to remove dead cells. The bacteria in our intestines convert dead and useless cells in our intestines into feces, and dead cells in wounds into scabs, which in turn protect the wound.
4. Mucus production caused by bacterial activity.
5. A fever helps the immune system control bacteria. The immune system is on standby at 37°C, the ideal temperature for bacteria to multiply rapidly. At 38.5°C, the immune system is active and can react quickly, while bacteria grow more slowly. This is important because, during teething, external bacteria (babies put everything in their mouths) can enter the body, and the immune system quickly eliminates them.
6. Irritation of the lips and the skin around the mouth, as the chemical composition of saliva is altered and becomes slightly more acidic due to the high concentration of bacteria. This process also helps the immune system control its worker colony.
7. Diarrhea and changes in the consistency and odor of the stool due to the ingestion of unwanted bacteria into the gastrointestinal tract: the baby swallows mucus and saliva, and the body eliminates them rapidly.
8. Skin irritation around the anus caused by a change in acidity in the gastrointestinal tract (from the mouth to the anus) for the same reason as the skin irritation around the mouth and lips.
9. Diaper rash caused by acidic stool.
There are several ways to “manage” this process. With or without medication—that is, by interfering with a perfectly natural process, or by letting it run its course.
In many cases, teething leads to ear infections for a very simple reason: babies swallow everything, and mucus gets trapped in the Eustachian tube between the ear and the nose. This is usually because, at the slightest sign of a fever, parents give their children antipyretics—medications that suppress the fever, which plays an essential role in this process. By chemically stripping the immune system of its ability to control bacteria, the bacteria multiply rapidly and end up accumulating behind the baby’s eardrum. At this point, other bacteria are needed to eliminate those that have reached the ear (which has its own bacterial colony, distinct from that of the gastrointestinal tract). The fever rises, the baby experiences much more pain due to pressure on the eardrum, and the process ends with a course of antibiotics that indiscriminately eliminate bacteria—both those naturally present in the body and those the body considers invaders. In short, this is an expensive, useless, and even dangerous process, as it weakens the immune system for several months after the antibiotics have taken effect.
Many parents turn to “more natural” methods—such as natural sedatives and probiotics—which are safer and less expensive but equally unnecessary, since they disregard the normal bodily process we all go through.

Finally, there is this simple, painless, and safe process: educating parents to remind them that this is a natural process that will proceed much more quickly if allowed to develop normally, combined with spinal adjustments as needed to enable the body to function to its full potential during this time. This safe, inexpensive, and even necessary method, which respects the innate function of the immune system and the body, is called chiropractic.