Pacifiers No Hindrance to Nursing
Contrary to a concern held by many pediatricians, the use of pacifiers does not cause infants to stop breast-feeding early, according to research released Tuesday.
Based on studies that suggested a link between pacifiers and weaning before three months, the World Health Organization has strongly discouraged pacifier use.
But the new research, reported in the Journal of the American Medical Assn., rebuts the fear that pacifier use causes infants to stop breast-feeding.
The earlier studies did not show whether pacifier use caused the weaning or whether both the pacifier use and the early weaning were symptoms of some other problem.
The new study, by researchers at McGill University in Montreal, suggests that pacifier use was not the cause. Using a pacifier appears to be an indication of feeding difficulties rather than a cause of them, the researchers said.
Unfortunately for parents, the researchers also found that using pacifiers does not really cut down on infants’ fussing and crying.
The researchers tracked 258 healthy breast-feeding women and their newborns. The women were divided into two groups. One was counseled to use pacifiers to soothe their babies. Women in the control group were advised to use other methods of soothing the baby, such as rocking. The mothers kept track of the time their babies spent fussing or sucking a pacifier.
Mothers in both groups ended up using pacifiers, but the control group used them much less. The number of babies who were weaned before three months in both groups was roughly the same, evidence that pacifier use did not cause the babies to give up on nursing.
At the same time, the babies who used a pacifier spent just as much time fussing as those who didn’t use one, they said.
The results suggest that pacifiers may be little more than a psychological aid for the parents, the authors of the study suggested.
The study did not address pacifier use for children over 3 months old.
The findings should “lead breast-feeding promotion programs and international agencies to reexamine their staunch opposition to pacifiers,” the researchers said.
