Teething does not cause gas. The medically recognized symptoms of teething are limited to drooling, gum discomfort, increased chewing, and mild fussiness. Gas, bloating, and other digestive issues are not among them. However, the timing of teething overlaps with changes in a baby’s diet and development that genuinely do cause gas, which is why so many parents connect the two.
What Teething Actually Causes
The American Academy of Pediatrics identifies only a short list of proven teething symptoms: increased drooling, a need to chew on things, mild gum pain, and slightly increased fussiness. That’s essentially it. The gum discomfort is usually mild enough that it doesn’t cause crying or disrupt sleep. A facial rash from drool is common too, since saliva carries small bits of food that irritate the skin.
Multiple systematic reviews published between 2016 and 2023 have confirmed that gastrointestinal symptoms, including loose stools, increased stool frequency, vomiting, and decreased appetite, show no significant association with teething. A 2025 structured review in the Journal of Clinical Pediatric Dentistry put it plainly: there is no credible evidence linking teething to gastrointestinal disturbances.
Why Gas Seems Connected to Teething
Most babies start teething between 4 and 7 months old. This is the exact window when parents typically introduce solid foods, and a baby’s digestive system is adjusting to new proteins, fibers, and sugars it has never processed before. New foods are one of the most common causes of gas in infants. A baby trying pureed peas for the first time during the same week a tooth breaks through will appear to have “teething gas,” but the peas are the more likely culprit.
Excess drool may play a minor role as well. Babies swallow large amounts of saliva during teething, and some parents and pediatricians have speculated that this extra fluid could mildly affect digestion. This hasn’t been confirmed in studies, but it’s a plausible explanation for why some babies seem gassier during teething episodes. The key distinction is that even if swallowed drool contributes to minor digestive changes, it’s a side effect of drooling rather than a direct symptom of teeth erupting.
Babies also tend to mouth and chew on everything during teething, which means they swallow more air than usual. Swallowed air is a straightforward mechanical cause of gas that has nothing to do with the teeth themselves.
When Gas Points to Something Else
Because teething has become a catch-all explanation for infant discomfort, real illnesses sometimes get dismissed as “just teething.” Babies between 6 and 24 months are teething almost constantly (20 teeth come in over roughly 18 months), so any illness during that window will coincide with a tooth. The overlap is statistical, not causal.
Gas paired with diarrhea, vomiting, fever at or above 100.4°F (38°C), refusing to eat, or unusual irritability that lasts more than a day or two is worth investigating on its own terms. These symptoms showed no significant association with teething in controlled studies, and attributing them to a new tooth can delay treatment for infections, food intolerances, or other digestive issues.
Relieving Gas During the Teething Months
If your baby is gassy and also teething, treating each issue separately tends to work best. For gas, the usual approaches apply: gentle belly massage in a clockwise direction, bicycle leg movements, more frequent burping during feeds, and pacing bottle feeds to reduce air swallowing. If you’ve recently introduced a new food, pulling it back for a few days can help you identify whether it’s the source.
For teething discomfort itself, a chilled (not frozen) teething ring or a clean, wet washcloth kept in the refrigerator gives babies something safe to gnaw on. Gently rubbing the gums with a clean finger can also relieve pressure. These simple measures address the mild gum soreness that teething actually produces, without assuming it’s responsible for every symptom happening at the same time.