Health-Conscious Dentistry: Dental Amalgams are 50 Percent Mercury. Should Expectant Moms be Concerned?
Renee Jamison, a 37-year-old senior manager at a financial services firm, realized that she was spending most of her non-working time trying to recuperate from the workday. Describing herself as a type-A personality driven to succeed in her career, raise a family and keep physically fit, Renee worked long hours, went to the gym, shopped at the health food store, and tried to spend quality time with her husband. The fact that she was burned out and suffering from fatigue, headaches and allergies didn’t stop her from also trying to get pregnant.
Renee had already stopped eating fish because of the mercury warnings. But now one of the cusps of a molar with a giant amal- gam had just fractured, and she had a problem. She had read somewhere that silver fillings contained 50 percent mercury. “It was too soon to tell if I was pregnant, but I had to do something with this tooth,” says Renee. “It was beginning to hurt.” Renee’s dentist, whom she had been going to for years, assured her that amalgams were safe; however, she preferred to be cautious and not expose herself to an aerosol of mercury from drilling out her large filling. “My dentist told me that the pain may be a worse stress for the pregnancy and my obstetrician suggested that I get the tooth fixed. I just didn’t know what to do.”
Dental health can affect your overall health as well as the health of a developing fetus. The fact that medical doctors have little to no training in dentistry, and that dentists aren’t licensed to treat the whole body, has created a void in healthcare. Physi- cians rarely look at teeth and gums and most don’t ask about a health history of dental infections, surgeries or the condition of dental work. Yet there is mounting evidence of the links between periodontal disease and heart disease, diabetes and pre-term births. Also, so many people suffer from digestive problems, obesity, headaches and allergies, that medical doctors fail to make the connection to dentistry and seldom consult or refer to a dentist.
