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Hello, I had 5 amalgam fillings, 3 large and 2 small. When I was pregnant I thought that silver fillings were just that silver. I did not have any dental work done while I was pregnant because I was nervous about it. However one fell out in the last few months of my pregnancy and i had it filled with composite when my daughter was 6 weeks old. It was at that time that I learned that amalgam can be at least 50% elemental mercury and the vapor can be ingested during removal and placing of amalgam fillings. I was horrified because I had an amalgam filling removed and replaced with another very large amalgam filling about a month before I even got pregnant. Apparently the half life for mercury inhaled as vapor or inorganic mercury is anywhere from 1 to 3 months and passes through the placenta. So residual mercury was in my system when I conceived and months after. I felt horrible that I had these type of fillings and wish I would have known about them sooner. Now my daughter is 6 months old and I am still dealing with issues with these fillings. I just had another amalgam filling placed on the side of a tooth fall out. It was pretty deep and I got into the dentist right away earlier today. There was still a pretty small piece of amalgam left in the tooth. I was hoping the dentist could just place composite around it but he wouldn't stating it was so small he would prefer to get it out so he could stabilize the new filling better. He said he would drill under it only slightly and then pry it out wit his pick instrument and replace it with composite. I agreed because i knew i needed the filling but now I'm very scared to breastfeed my 6 month old daughter. We just started introducing solids and supplementing with small amounts of Honest formula as she is in the 6th percentile for weight and her weight has dipped slightly since her 4 month appt. Im wondering if I should just switch to mostly formula now rather than risk exposing her to even more mercury? From the research I've done about one third of the mercury gets into breast milk? And it isn't known how well the infants stomach absorbs it? Is this accurate? What would your recommendation be? Thank you for you time.
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One last thing, as this just happened today I also considered getting a blood test done to see what my level was to help decide? It seems blood test could be helpful in acute exposures and I only eat fish about once a month so hopefully that wouldn't confuse the result. -
Alana,
I spoke with Dr Hale he said he thinks it is fine to go ahead and breastfeed, people are exposed to small amounts of mercury everyday through fish consumption, light bulbs etc, if you were having symptoms of mercury poisoning or had a high acute exposure to mercury we would recommend having you levels checked, but one recent filling is probably ok.
Sandra Lovato R.N.
InfantRisk Center
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