Breastfed babies not bothered by pacifiers
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by Aimee Keenan-Greene
Doctors and parents have long expressed concerns with pacifiers and breastfeeding. Does using a pacifier undermine milk production by reducing the infant’s time at the breast? Do pacifiers promote shallow suckling habits that fail to draw milk efficiently from the breast and lead to cracked nipples and mastitis for the mother?
Could these problems lead to a mother ending breastfeeding early?
Now a new review finds no association between pacifiers and the early cessation of nursing.
The review, reported on by the Health Behavior News Service, part of the Center for Advancing Health, looked at data from two randomized controlled trials that involved 1,302 mothers who were highly motivated to breastfeed.
Researchers assigned 1,021 mothers who were already breastfeeding at two weeks into groups who either received counseling to offer pacifiers to comfort a crying infant, or to avoid pacifiers. The other 281 mothers were put in groups before they started breastfeeding.
Pooling data from the two studies, the authors found permission to use pacifiers made no significant difference in the proportion of babies who were still exclusively or partially breastfeeding at three months and at four months. In fact, the numbers were nearly identical.
The results were the same whether pacifier use was allowed from birth or initiated after breastfeeding had been established.
The new review appears in the current issue of The Cochrane Library, a publication of the Cochrane Collaboration, an international organization that evaluates medical research. Systematic reviews draw evidence-based conclusions about medical practice after considering both the content and quality of existing medical trials on a topic.
The World Health Organization recommends against giving pacifiers to breastfeeding infants in the hospital immediately following birth, and a number of studies have found a more general association between pacifier use and early termination of breastfeeding.
Such studies, however, remain unclear about whether pacifiers cause breastfeeding problems, or if women who are having difficulties with breastfeeding, or whose motivation is waning, are more likely to turn to pacifiers.
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