Does how you clean your child’s pacifier affect whether they develop allergies or asthma? That is what this study set out to find. The researchers asked parents which of the following options they used to clean their baby’s pacifier, did they rinse it off with water, boil it or clean it in their mouth, and parents could choose more than one option. Then they followed the 184 infants involved in the study and a pediatric allergist checked them for asthma and allergies to pets, seasonal pollens, or food at 18 months old and 36 months old.

The allergist found when they checked the babies at 18 months that those whose parents had cleaned the pacifier using their own mouth had significantly lower rates of allergies, eczema and asthma. The findings were similar when they rechecked all of the babies at 36 months old. The doctors used a number of specific tests to determine if the babies had any allergies or asthma including measuring compounds in the blood that are elevated in any kind of allergy making the testing very thorough.

So how does sucking on your baby’s pacifier affect their chance of developing allergies and asthma? Well it all comes down to bugs, namely the very important probiotic bacteria that live in all of our mouths and digestive tracts. We have more bacterial cells in our digestive system than we do our own cells in our body. These bacteria have a number of very important functions but the one that applies here is that they help to tag or identify substances that are harmful to us. With the proper bacterial balance your body will identify a common allergen like pet dander or pollen from a flower as harmless and ignore it. If you do not have the proper bacterial balance to identify that pet dander or pollen then your body over-reacts, treats it like a harmful substance and tries to flush it out of your system by increasing mucous production in your nose and affecting your breathing. In order to get the proper bacterial balance in our system we need to acquire it from our environment. One of the ways we get it is from our parents. If a parent cleans their baby’s pacifier with their mouth they transfer the established bacteria from their body to their baby helping the baby to boost their own proper bacterial balance. This study also looked at if the babies in the study were born naturally or cesarean. They found those born naturally also caused them to have much lower chance of developing asthma or allergies for the same reasons. The baby is exposed to more of the mother’s bacteria during natural childbirth and is then sent home sooner. A cesarean birth is a sterilized procedure requiring a longer hospital stay, obviously in a sterile environment, and this overly clean start may cause the parent to be more fearful of germs.

The next time your baby drops their pacifier don’t’ feel bad if you can’t clean it. Just give it a lick! You’ll be giving your baby a boost of beneficial bacteria and be on your way!

Pediatrics Vol. 131, No. 6, June 2013

By Dr Scott Szela