A baby's breath is the sweetest thing you will ever smell. I was reminded of this the other day when watching a friend putting her nose nearly into her baby son's mouth and just inhaling. It is pure olfactory perfection, better then freshly mown grass or roses or hot chocolate, or whatever else people usually say their favourite smell is. You can't help imagining it bottled up and labelled 'Innocence', so that you could keep it for posterity. Wouldn't that be great, so that you can sniff it years on when your teenager comes back on a Saturday night reeking of Bulmers cider and Silk Cut?
Children's breath is usually pretty nice, too - except when they've got a bad cold and it smells a bit like old flower water. Unlike adult breath, it has no trace of fa*gs, booze, curry, tooth decay or the effects of dieting, and is usually something you are pretty pleased to smell - even first thing in the morning. Which is why I was so concerned when my nine-year-old son's breath turned from sweet to unbelievably sour overnight.
It was an almost chemical smell, which I had to force myself not to recoil from when he jumped on my bed in the morning. Kids in his class were not so kind - particularly the girl who asked him if he was 'rotting'. I wondered if at his tender age some kind of hormone had kicked in, marking the end of childhood by some pungent odour. Oddly enough, my son thought the same sort of thing. Among his pals, BO under armpits is an exciting sign of becoming 'manly', and he decided to regard bad breath as the same sort of thrilling sign of a coming of age. He laughed when his sister fled from his dragon-like breath.
I turned to the web and typed in 'halitosis'. Dozens and dozens of American breath clinics selling tongue scrapers and new kinds of toothpaste and mouthwash came up. Reading through them, I was advised that the most common reason for bad breath is connected with the teeth. Apparently, few people brush long enough to remove bacteria from their teeth and these bacteria feast on food particles left on our teeth, creating smelly gases. If you don't floss, then the odour-producing bacteria grows rampantly in the spaces between your teeth. Your tongue, too, can harbour bacteria - particularly at the back.
So, I started to supervise my son's twice-daily brushes once again, just as I had done when he was younger. I taught him how to floss (actually surprisingly difficult) and got him to brush his tongue as far back as he could without gagging. Despite a good 10 minutes of oral hygiene, his breath still smelt of boot polish. We tried all the over-the-counter mouthwashes but they seemed to make the smell even more intense and, fearing he had a serious dental problem such as gingivitis or an abscess, I took him to our dentist, who could find nothing wrong. My husband became convinced that the answer was masses of water and my poor son found himself having to drink glass after glass of water. I started secretly to worry. What an earth could make a child's breath smell as rancid as this? Surely it might be the sign of something really serious? I knew it wasn't the diabetic pear-drop breath smell or a problem with his tonsils, as he'd had them taken out when he was four. I was deeply concerned that he might have an infection (or worse) of the chest or the stomach.
I visited the doctor, and although I saw her wrinkle her nose when she asked him to breath on her, she clearly thought I was neurotic, told me that it was just one of those things and gave me a prescription for yet another mouthwash that didn't just mask my son's breath but seemed to bring out the chemical smell even more. He was still being teased at school and was allowed by the teacher to carry fresh-breath capsules, spray and mints - none of which helped for more then a few seconds.
So, never having been in the slightest bit 'alternative', I went back to the homeopath who actually took time to talk to my son about things that might be concerning him. She explained that bad breath was often stress related, because stress dries up the mouth, and a good flow of saliva was very important. My son suffers from allergies and has to take antihistamine quite regularly, so I asked her if the two things might be related. She gave him two little pills which he said tasted nice and, a couple of weeks later, the bad breath disappeared - which coincided with a trip to Turkey.
By the time term came again, however, the terrible boot-polish smell had returned and I was ashamed of the way it made me less inclined to hug him. I went back to my GP once again and was told there was nothing they could do about breath and that they were sure I didn't want 'invasive action' for a problem that, after all, was not so serious. So it was back to the soft-voiced homeopath who my son enjoyed chatting to about the problems of homework - but this time the little pills didn't work.
By now, I was starting to build up a bit of an email relationship with a breath expert in America. I was grateful for the American ability to embrace such a problem that obviously even embarrassed GPs over here, even if I knew they were trying to sell their products and get people to come and use their halometers (machines that measure the amount of gases in the breath). I tried really hard to explain just what the breath smelt like and Dr Gary Herskovits asked if I thought it might be a reaction to milk. I found that really hard to believe, even though my son had suffered a severe reaction to cow's milk when he was a baby. I wrote and said that as he only had cow's milk on his cereal and never ate cheese, I thought it pretty unlikely. I didn't stop him drinking milk until nearly a month later, when a friend told me her son's breath had improved dramatically since she had started to give him toast for breakfast. We tried it and within a day the smell had gone. That was more than two months ago and explained why it had stopped smelling in Turkey - we had eaten figs and bread and honey for two weeks.
Why did this happen? I tracked down Dr Philip Stemmer, who runs one of the only centres specialising in bad breath in this country - the Fresh Breath Centre. 'Allergic reaction to foods such as milk and wheat can add to what we call the post-nasal drip, where mucus falls on to the back of the tongue,' he explained. 'This layer of mucus provides a protective blanket under which the bacteria hides and feeds.'
So I will keep my son off dairy products then, and if for any reason his bad breath comes back again, I think I will take him to Dr Stemmer, who understood exactly what I meant by a 'boot-polish' smell. Thank goodness, though, that my son is huggable once more and not able to use his breath as a weapon to terrify and bully his sister.
Myths about bad breath
You can tell if you have bad breath: You certainly can't tell by cupping your hands over your mouth. Lick the back of your hand, leave for 10 seconds and then smell.
Brushing your teeth gets rid of bad breath: Although it is true that only a tiny minority of bad breath comes from causes other than bacteria in the mouth, many people expect a quick brush with minty toothpaste to do the trick. You need to brush for three minutes, floss and brush your tongue. Also go to the dentist to make sure you don't have gum disease.
Mouthwash gets rid of bad breath: Many mouthwashes contain alcohol, which dries out the mouth and gives the bacteria even more opportunity to flourish. Try to keep your mouth moist by drinking lots of water - particularly when exercising, fasting or talking a lot. Some of the new alcohol-free mouthwashes coming on to the market are much better for keeping the breath fresh.
