I will never forget the day when my daughter was about 8 months old and her pacifier dropped on the floor and my mother-in-law picked it up and “cleaned” it by sucking it and popped it back into my daughter’s mouth. I think my jaw dropped in shock because all I could think about are the germs she she just transferred to my baby.
Yes, I was one of the first time moms who sanitized and de-germed EVERYTHING she touched, including the pacifier. Well, I come to find out that her type of “cleaning” method could actually be helping my daughter’s immune system.
There was a recent article written in the Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics about the Pacifier Cleaning Practices and Risk of Allergy Development. The article suggests that parental sucking of the their infant’s pacifier may reduce the risk of allergy development. They also state that the microbes from the parent’s saliva transferred to the baby may stimulate the immune response and that children whose parents “cleaned” their pacifier by sucking were less likely to have asthma, eczema or sensitization at 18 months of age than children whose parents did not.
I want to know: what do you think about this new information? Do you “clean” your baby’s paci this way? Does the thought gross you out? What do you think of the new research?
For more on paci use in general, check out this MayoClinic.com article.
Photo credit: WarmSleepy via Flickr Creative Commons
So I always do this. Always. Once, though, I was visiting a church and was trying to calm my son in the nursing room. He spit out his binky and without thinking, I picked it up and popped in my mouth to clean it. Only this time there was a long hair on it!?!? Having a random person’shair in my mouth definitely makes me check it first now!!!!! One of the grossest mom moments ever!!!!!!!!!
I’m a mother of 5 and I have always thought this was gross!
Comments are closed.