Pacifier Use Discussed by Warren, Michigan Dentist

Hi, I’m Dr. Greg Apsey here in Warren, Michigan at 11270 13 Mile road. You can reach us at 586-573-7700. And today I’d like to speak with you about pacifier use and children and what my opinions are on it and how long they should be using them and so forth.

Pacifiers actually has some benefits to the very young, under 2-year old child in that it is obviously comforting but also at night during sleep to prevent the absolute deepest sleep. Having a pacifier in the mouth tends to prevent the child from going to the absolute deepest sleep and the question is, why would we want that? The incidents of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, is more likely if the child is able to get to the deepest levels of sleep. So, recommendation is that they do use a pacifier early on so that suckling helps to keep them more active during sleep, and actually might not be a bad idea in the first 2 years.

At the age of 2, in order to prevent issues with developments of the teeth and the roof of the mouth and so forth, detrimental developments that the pacifier can cause, we recommend that the child no longer use it. First of all the pacifier should not be attached to anything that wraps around the neck of course, because you want to avoid any risk of strangulation. Pacifiers should have a large ring on it and it should also have air holes in the pad that goes against the lips such that it helps with breathing while the child is wearing the pacifier.

Pacifiers should never obviously be reused; when you’re done with it, it should be thrown away. It should be cleaned with mild soap and water and rather than it should never be put into the adult’s mouth because bacteria from the adult can be passed to the child that way. What we recommend is that you use a uniform pacifier that is ADA approved, (American Dental Association approved) but at the age of 2 you should start thinking about weaning your child off of it. Weaning the child off the pacifier can be done in several different ways.

The very tip of it can be clipped and the child’s not going to notice that they’ve done that. I wouldn’t do it in front of your child, of course. You’d want to do it, you know, when they’re not looking, and then when they have it, it no longer has the same feeling and the child is often going to reject it. And that may, as far as they’re concerned may be the only pacifier that they have. And that pacifier is no longer fun to suck on and often times that’s enough and the child will give it up at that point. If that doesn’t work you can also dip the pacifier in a vinegar solution or you can just take it away and say that’s it, we’re not going to use it anymore. There are a variety of things that can be done.

The other thing is you could start is after the child is asleep, take the pacifier away or remove it from them. There’s a variety of ways of doing it but my favorite has been and what’s worked the best for a lot of my patients and their children is clipping the end of the pacifier. So, my recommendation is that they do use it until age two but then as quickly as possible, try to wean them off of it.

So thank you so much for listening.