Katharina Buczek
Costa Mesa, California. Do you ever kiss your baby on the lips? While it may seem innocent and harmless, TikToker @Joycethedentist shared a series of videos about why you should never kiss your children on the mouth.
“I never kiss my baby on the lips because as much as I want to, I have had a long history of having tons of cavities,” Dr. Joyce Kahng, a cosmetic dentist based in Costa Mesa, explained while her son lay on her chest.
“That cavity-causing bacteria can transfer to the little guy and I want to give him the best chance of not inheriting my bacteria.”
You can inherit mouth bacteria? Thousands of people from the TikTok community did not even know that was possible. So, Dr. Joyce continued to post follow-up videos with further explanation.
“So back when I was in dental school, they made us do an experiment where we took some saliva from inside of our mouths and grew it on a petri dish,” she said.
“Most of my friends who never had cavities had this type of growth.”
She then pointed to an image with a very minimal amount of singular bacterial cells.
“Meanwhile, my petri dish looked like this– an explosion of bacteria! And it was quite embarrassing, to be honest,” Dr. Joyce continued while showing a photo of her own petri dish. The bacteria cells were multiplied across the dish and resembled polka dots.
TikTok; pictured above is Dr. Joyce Kahng with her son
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