Pacifiers May Not Adversely Effect Breastfeeding

The conventional wisdom among breastfeeding mothers has been to keep pacifiers away from newborns still learning how to breastfeed. Called "nipple confusion," many mothers will attest to the fact that providing their newborn with a bottle or pacifier in their first weeks of life has caused problems achieving a successful latch. Despite a long fight against hospital policy that enables a baby to be given a bottle or pacifier right after birth, a new study suggests something different - that pacifiers could actually help babies learn how to latch properly.

Researchers at Oregon Health & Science University discovered that breastfeeding rates actually fell when they stopped giving newborns pacifiers. Dr. Carrie Phillipi, a pediatrician at the hospital says, "Our observations suggest routinely removing pacifiers may negatively impact exclusive breastfeeding rates during the birth hospitalization." Data was collected from over 2,200 infants delivered at the hospital between 2010 and 2011. During that period, a policy was instituted that prevented the use of pacifiers with newborns. The percentage of babies who were exclusively breastfed during that period dropped from 80 percent to 68 percent.

Kim Novak-Jones, a registered nurse at the University of North Carolina's Women's and Children's Hospital was surprised by the findings because instituting Baby-Friendly policies, which includes halting the use of pacifiers, seemed to cause an increase in breastfeeding rates at UNC.

Phillipi explains that the effect of pacifier use early in life isn't well studied, "Taken together, the 10 steps [required to become a Baby-Friendly hospital] have been shown to improve breastfeeding rates. However, the individual contribution of removing pacifiers as one of the 10 steps hasn’t been as well studied."

Did you discover that giving your newborn a pacifier changed the breastfeeding relationship in any way?

Pacifiers And Breastfeeding: New Study Challenges Conventional Wisdom [HuffPo]