Pacifiers and breastfeeding

Article Outline

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The question of whether a pacifier affects the prevalence or duration of breastfeeding was addressed in a multicenter, randomized, controlled trial comprising of 1023 mothers. The results of this 3-month study by Jenik et al from Buenos Aires are published in this issue of The Journal. They found that there was no effect on the prevalence and duration of breastfeeding of a recommendation at 15 days to offer a pacifier. However, a weakness of the study is that the mothers did not necessarily follow the assignment: at 3 months, only 67% of infants whose mothers received the assignment to offer the pacifier were using it, whereas 40% of infants whose mothers were not to offer the pacifier were using it. This difference may be as much as can realistically be achieved in a real world setting.

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