Most babies have sweet smelling breath, but occasionally baby bad breath does occur. It can be a singular question upon waking, after the baby has been asleep for a few hours - like morning breath in adults. During sleep, the mouth is typically relaxed and motionless, there is decreased saliva production, and bacteria that live in the mouth cavity have an opening to multiply undisturbed. Some of these bacteria can furnish the unpleasant odor we connect with bad breath, and when they multiply to adequate numbers, the odor becomes detectable.
If you think that "morning breath" is causing bad breath in baby, try treating it by cleansing the mouth before putting baby down for a nap. If baby is very young and has no teeth, encourage a water rinse to flush traces of recipe or bits of food out of cracks and crevices. If baby has teeth, a polite brushing and a rinse should help. Rinsing and brushing upon waking can be helpful too. (Fluoridated toothpastes should be used very sparingly in young children, and brushing should always be supervised even when your child is old adequate to begin brushing on her own.) If these measures relax the baby bad breath, you needn't do more.
However, if bad breath in baby persists after brushing and cleansing, there may be another problem. Does baby use a soother or often suck on some other object like a blanket or stuffed toy? An object that is continually put into the mouth gets coated with saliva and oral bacteria and can establish an unpleasant odor. Though the smell may not be nasty to your child, it can conduce to lingering bad odors in the vicinity of baby, and to baby bad breath. The simple solution is to wash or replace the offending item regularly. Eventually, your child will give up the sucking habit and the question will disappear on its own.
Occasionally bad breath in baby has a more sinister cause. If your efforts to solve the question are fruitless, you should consult your pediatrician or house doctor. The physician will check for signs of throat or sinus infection, infection somewhere in the mouth, tooth decay, or a foreign object lodged in a nasal passage. Sinus congestion can conduce to baby bad breath as well, by causing baby to breathe straight through the mouth: dry mouth is a cause of breath odor in both children and adults because saliva is naturally antibacterial and, in a salutary mouth, it keeps the citizen of odor causing bacteria at a minimum.
Once again, baby bad breath is relatively unusual: if simple measures don't solve the problem, your child should be seen by a medical pro to rule out more serious problems.
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