Pacifiers and breastfeeding
Breastfeeding may be nature’s way of nourishing your baby but it often doesn’t come naturally, and many women report having breastfeeding problems. If you want to successfully breastfeed your baby then avoiding giving her a pacifier to help soothe those crying spells could help. New research suggests that moms who gave their baby a pacifier within the first few weeks of her life were less likely to continue breastfeeding their babies.
When breastfeeding, your baby uses a very different technique to that used by bottlefed babies. Her tongue literally milks the breast in order to draw milk down – unlike the simple sucking that is involved in bottlefeeding. The same latching and suckling technique that goes with bottlefeeding goes with pacifier use and it may confuse your newborn when it comes to nursing.
If she attempts to breastfeed using the same sucking motion she uses with her pacifier she won’t feed efficiently. And it’s a vicious cycle: because breast milk is produced on a supply and demand basis, if she isn’t feeding properly your breasts will produce less milk. Moms in this situation often end up giving their hungry babies top-up bottles of formula, which just exacerbates the problem.
In Denmark, where the research took place, registered nurses visit moms and their newborns soon after they leave hospital. To investigate whether early breastfeeding technique and pacifier use might affect breastfeeding success, the researchers had health visitors specially trained in breastfeeding counseling visit 570 moms.
At the visit, the nurse observed the mom breastfeeding. If she wasn’t using an effective technique (for example, the baby wasn’t properly latched on), the nurse provided feedback, showed the mom a more effective technique, and then scheduled a second session. At the first visit, which typically occurred eight days after the babies left the hospital, half of the moms were having breastfeeding difficulty, most frequently with positioning the baby or latching on. While these problems were not associated with how long the mother ultimately breastfed her child, problems with sucking and milk transfer were. Nearly two-thirds of the women reported giving their baby a pacifier – and pacifier use was associated with a shorter duration of breastfeeding. The researchers conclude that pacifier use should be avoided in the first weeks after birth by moms who want to breastfeed.
The study is published in Birth, March 2009.