Amber Teething Beads - Help or Hoax?

Ok so this whole hype surrounding 'Amber Teething Necklaces' is driving me insane. I'm a sceptic to things that claim unexplainable miraculous cures, however i am open to new ideas and things so im not totally against the whole idea. I set out to see one way or another whether there is in fact any real scientific or medicinal benefit to these beads.


There are so many stories online about how they worked wonders for people and how they saw an instant change overnight etc. These kinds of stories make me even more sceptical to be honest. If something is able to provide pain relief that quickly, wouldn't the medical world be investigating it thoroughly?  But those thoughts aside i ventured into the online community to find actual scientific evidence that there is something to these beads.


First of all lets look at what it claims to do:

The first thing i found was that not all amber can claim to have this affect. Apparently its specifically 'Baltic Amber' that contains the key ingredient that aids with teething. This key ingredient is called 'Succinic Acid'. True 'Baltic Amber' contains the highest concentration of succinic acid (Around 8%). 


Here is where my first issue arise. If we look simply at succinic acid (amber and beads and teething aside), pure succinic acid is actually highly flammable, corrosive and incredibly dense - its melting temperature is 185 degrees celsius. So lets just say that the beads we have contain 8% succinic acid....if our body temperature was enough to heat up the amber to secrete this succinic acid, would it not burn our skin and body? Even at an 8% concentration one would expect at least some form of skin irritation should the succinic acid penetrate your skin.


Issue number two comes with the amber itself. Baltic amber or succinite has a hardness level of 2 or 3. Now for those of you that aren't familiar with the hardness scale (officially its call Mohs Scale of Hardness - no idea who Moh is tho haha), minerals, rocks and metals are given a hardness rating. To compare this hardness rating and to give you an idea of how hard Amber actually is, Gold has a hardness rating of 2.5-3 on the Mohs scale. If you wear a gold ring, do you honestly expect your body temperature to heat up the gold enough for it to secrete anything from it? No of course not.Succinite (or baltic amber) has a melting point of around 300 degrees celsius. So lets just say that you could heat succinite to a point where it would secrete the succinic acid, you would have to be heating to over 100 degrees. No human being is capable of heating amber with their skin to a point where it secretes 'oils'. Period. Its not something i've made up, its simply science.


The other thing that concerns me is that if the amber beads do in fact release a small amount of succinic acid, aren't parents even remotely interested in how much is going into their babies skin? Natural or not if something is strong enough to soothe the pain or teething or other aches and pains, wouldn't you want to know how much of this 'drug' is entering your babies blood stream? 

Ok so what about all the testimonies from other parents about them working wonders??

Well im not one to dimiss first hand experiences, but my first instinct is to put it down to a placebo affect. Parents claim that their babies breezed through teething without so much as a tear or a dribble. The problem with this theory is that how do you really know if your baby is going to experience teething pains or symptoms? What most parents don't realise is that not all babies experience any of these symptoms. Some might grizzle for 24hrs before cutting a tooth and others might be chewing on everything for months before one lonely tooth pops up, while others still don't show any signs at all and wake up with one toothy little grin. A study published in the 'International Journal of Dental Hygiene' of over 1600 parents determined that over 75% of parents incorrectly attributed symptoms such as fever, diarrhoea and sleeping problems to teething. So how do you really know if your baby is in distress from an illness or if it is caused by teething? They can't tell us if they're crying or grizzly because they are sick, uncomfortable, unwell or just having an off day.

Others testify that their babies were miserable one day and after wearing it for the day they had a brand new baby. Again i am sceptical that if an object such as amber could produce enough analgesic to calm a baby in pain it would happen in such a  short period of time. If it did happen in such a short period of time, wouldn't you be worried about the amount of this drug going into your child's system? 

My other point is that babies are very sensitive to our emotions as a mother. Lets say our baby is driving us crazy from crying and being miserable (for whatever reason, teething, sickness, pain, sleeplessness). We've tried everything we can to help calm them down but nothing seems to work, they won't sleep, they're crying and grizzly. We decide to give these beads a go as a last resort. Go to bed praying that something changes. They baby wakes up happy and calm, we instantly relax believing the beads must be working - what else could attribute such a sudden change? The more we relax the more our baby relaxes and calms down. In a similar way a stressed breastfeeding mum can stress a baby in such a way they won't feed but cry, our emotional state can cause our baby to become distressed setting us up for a vicious cycle. We're stressed which makes our baby cry, which stresses us more, which makes them cry more. Who's to say our belief in such an object may in fact cause us to calm down and in turn our baby?

Either way i am yet to be convinced that these 'Amber teething necklaces' do actually work. If anyone can provide actual proof or evidence that shows how they work i'd be very interested to hear. So far not even the legitimate websites that sell these necklaces will actually say the DO work. Here are a few

Whilst we LOVE and promote natural remedies, *************** can't guarantee the effectiveness of Baltic Amber or gemstones in the treatment of any specific conditions and we always recommend that you seek medical advice and treatment as required from a trusted professional. No information about Baltic Amber Necklaces or any other products from *********** should be taken to be medical advice. It is for general information only.

and another

When worn by little ones, the warmth from their body releases the amber's natural oils into the bloodstream, soothing the misery of teething aches and pains. DO TEETHING NECKLACES REALLY WORK? We say YES! Based on our own personal experience, feedback from other mums and our customer testimonials we are positive in saying baltic amber is effective in the aid of most babies teething pains and discomfort.

(funny they don't have actual proof, just personal experience?)

and another site:

Recent media attention has brought up the question as to how safe amber teething necklaces are for your baby and how amber teething necklaces work, or whether they work at all. While we don’t have direct evidence of how they work, the testimonials of thousands of parents tell us they do help. We are not saying that we know exactly how these work, and because all babies are different in how they react to teething, we can’t guarantee that your baby will teeth better than the next with amber. But it is possible that the healing & soothing effect of Amber are due to both of these explanations, or none – maybe it’s all psychological – although babies can’t possibly know this!

So considering no one (not even the places that sell the amber beads) can confirm how they work, nor can that actually prove they do anything at all, im still inclined to believe that its an old wives tale - until proven otherwise.

xx

Sceptic Mama!