According to a study conducted by Montpellier researchers, babies’ pacifiers have a protective role against food allergies.
- Babies who suck on a pacifier are less likely to suffer from food allergies.
- The protective effect could be linked to the habit of some parents of sucking the pacifier to “clean” it.
- However, further research is needed to confirm this hypothesis.
Given the difficulty sometimes in getting children to stop “totottes”, many young parents try not to give their baby a pacifier. However, this object seems to have a benefit that goes beyond helping to satisfy the sucking needs of the toddler.
Researchers from the University of Montpellier assure in an article published in Pediatric Allergy and Immunology that pacifiers reduce the risk of suffering from food allergies while growing up.
Babies with a pacifier have fewer food allergies
The team took data from the mother-child cohort EDEN which has nearly 1,800 infants. The children, born in the maternity wards of the University Hospitals of Nancy and Poitiers between May 2003 and July 2006, were followed for five years. New examinations were conducted at 8 and 10-13 years.
Using the questionnaire completed at the first birthday of the little participants, the scientists noted that 58.8% of them had had a pacifier during the first 12 months of their lives. In addition, during the same period, 6.3% of babies had allergic reactions after eating certain foods such as fish or eggs. After comparing the incidence of disorders according to the use of the “tototte”, the researchers showed that the use of the object has a protective effect against food allergies in children.
Food allergy and pacifier: the explanation would be in… the parents’ mouths
For scientists, the protective effect does not come from the pacifier itself, but rather from the habits of mums and dads. Indeed, many parents have the reflex of “to clean” their child’s totottes by sucking them themselves. This would result in a transfer of their salivary microbiome to the baby who would then benefit from increased protection against the risk of developing food allergies.
Work presented in 2018 relied on a similar hypothesis to explain the fewer cases of allergies, eczema and asthma in children who had this accessory during their very young years.
Nevertheless, the researchers believe that further research – especially on the composition of babies’ microbiome – is needed to confirm their hypothesis.
