Why does a baby need a pacifier?

As a rule, a paci­fi­er is con­sid­ered an indis­pens­able and manda­to­ry attribute of an infant. At the same time, most par­ents do not think about why it is need­ed at all. Of course, she “works” as a seda­tive, but it would be much bet­ter to take the baby in your arms and calm him down.

Often you can see a pic­ture when a baby in a stroller “trav­els” with a com­plete­ly impas­sive expres­sion on his face. The thing is that at this time his mouth is occu­pied by a paci­fi­er. The suck­ing reflex is one of the most impor­tant for babies at this age, since even a well-fed baby smacks from time to time. But the con­stant suck­ing of a paci­fi­er dulls this nec­es­sary reflex — there­fore, not far from seri­ous prob­lems with breast­feed­ing. Con­tin­u­ous suck­ing is a lot of work for the baby, so he gets tired quick­ly. Breast suck­ing requires even more effort, so often such chil­dren begin to act up dur­ing feed­ing. At the same time, the moth­er decides that she does not have enough milk and begins to bot­tle feed the baby. A few days of such “sup­ple­men­ta­tion” — and you will not force the baby to suck on a “heavy” breast.

Suck­ing on a paci­fi­er car­ries anoth­er dan­ger. First­ly, the baby con­stant­ly swal­lows air, as a result of which col­ic, fre­quent belch­ing and swelling are “guar­an­teed” due to excess gas­es in the intestines. From a hygien­ic point of view, a paci­fi­er is also not the safest option. The nip­ple often falls to the floor, and the par­ents give it to their baby, before lick­ing it. We should not for­get that the microflo­ra in the mouth of an adult will be unsafe for a baby with an imma­ture immune sys­tem. If we are talk­ing about an old­er child, then he him­self can put his paci­fi­er in the dust, and then put it back in his mouth. Fre­quent dis­eases are pro­vid­ed to such chil­dren, and for no clear rea­son.

Among oth­er things, the con­stant suck­ing of the paci­fi­er does not allow the bite to form cor­rect­ly. Also for this rea­son, there is a delay in psy­chomo­tor devel­op­ment, since the impres­sions of the child are not dis­persed over the entire exter­nal world, but con­sist only in con­stant suck­ing.

In addi­tion, the nip­ple pre­vents the baby from replen­ish­ing the speech reserve. Even by the age of one, the child already has a cer­tain vocab­u­lary, which will not be imple­ment­ed if the baby’s mouth is con­stant­ly busy. In the same case, if the dum­my accom­pa­nies the baby up to the age of three, it will be pos­si­ble in the future not to be sur­prised by the speech and intel­lec­tu­al delay.

Of course, a dum­my is not a uni­ver­sal evil, and there are times when it is real­ly need­ed. For exam­ple, if your baby is char­ac­ter­ized by increased ner­vous excitabil­i­ty, then the nip­ple will real­ly help him fall asleep. At the same time, dur­ing sleep, the paci­fi­er should not be in the baby’s mouth. In addi­tion, the paci­fi­er should not replace teethers at the moment when they are need­ed. More­over, such teethers real­ly help to “scratch” the gums, but have noth­ing to do with the suck­ing reflex.