Baby Pacifiers Issues and Breastfeeding Tips

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Baby Pacifiers Issues and Breastfeeding Tips

Breastfeeding and pacifiers – the first one is the baby’s main source of nourishment; the second one is often used as a reliable alternative to the physical sensation of breastfeeding when mothers are unable to provide just that for their babies, or when babies become so fuzzy.

As widely used as pacifiers are in appeasing colicky babies, however, these are not entirely beneficial especially in their earliest weeks, when babies must be breastfed more than anything else. Using pacifiers in extreme cases of colic may be understandable, but using this alternative as often as breastfeeding will, according to studies, build an aversion to the breastfeeding method – and therefore preference to the pacifier – before a baby starts weaning.

Breastfeeding babies suck the milk differently than bottle-fed babies or those who use pacifiers. This difference in the method of feeding, especially within the first few days of a baby’s life, will likely confuse his or her system. What worsens these cases is when babies are fed pacifiers more than they are breastfed, making them crave for the artificial one more than the natural one in the long run.

The more often a mother gives a baby a pacifier, the more a baby is accustomed to this, and the more she or he will develop dependency to the product.

Studies have shown that this, in the long run, would also result in less breastmilk supply in nursing mothers. The logic behind this is because a mother’s supply naturally adapts to the demand for breastmilk throughout the nursing period. If the baby rarely breastfeeds, therefore, the mother tends to produce less and less milk in the process. This happens because the prolactin levels of mothers decrease with less sucking actions from the babies who are breastfeeding less often.

The problem on breastfeeding stemming from increased pacifier use in babies, therefore, can be completely manageable, provided that mothers are knowledgeable and sensitive enough of its effects to a baby’s nourishment and weaning.

Doctors do not recommend introducing a pacifier early into birth, especially in the first six weeks. This critical time in a baby’s feeding regimen will largely define how he or she will receive different stimuli introduced to him or her later in life. Introducing two kinds of nipples from which babies will feed on will thus create a feeding confusion in babies, often resulting in certain nipple preferences.

Busy moms who cannot be with their babies all the time and who may need to bottle-feed or use pacifiers to compensate for this instead will, however, do better not to overdo these artificial methods. Proper nourishment, after all, is far more important than pacifying a fussy baby.

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