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Abstract
Background: Parturition lines have been described in the teeth of a number of animals, including primates, but never in modern humans. These accentuated lines in dentine are comprised of characteristic dark and light component zones.
Aim: The aim of this study was to review the physiology underlying these lines and to ask if parturition lines exist in the third molar tooth roots of mothers known to have had one or more children during their teenage years.
Methods: Brief retrospective oral medical obstetric histories were taken from four mothers and compared with histological estimates for the timing of accentuated markings visible in longitudinal ground sections of their wisdom teeth.
Results: Evidence of accentuated markings in M3 root dentine matched the age of the mother at the time their first child was born reasonably well. However, the dates calculated for inter-birth intervals did not match well.
Conclusions: Parturition lines corresponding to childbirth during the teenage years can exist in human M3 roots, but may not always do so. Without a written medical history it would not be possible to say with confidence that an accentuated line in M3 root dentine was caused by stress, illness or was a parturition line.
Acknowledgements
We thank Sarah Elton and Kevin Kuykendall and the organizers of the SSHB Symposium, “Human Biology of the Past”, held in Durham, August 2013 for inviting us to take part and present a paper in which aspects of this study were first reported. We thank Dr Yousra Mirghani, University of Khartoum, Sudan and Drs Israa Osman, Israa Salah and Nihal Abd El Azeem (Khartoum Centre for Research and Medical Training), Khartoum, Sudan, for their help with aspects of this study. We thank two referees for their helpful comments on the manuscript.