Home  |  Health & Fitness Children's Health  | 

Calming Your Newborn

Should I give my baby a pacifier?

To properly view this site, javascript must be enabled and Flash version 9 or higher must be installed.
Get the latest Flash player

View Comments (Add Comment)

  • DrMDK Flag

    Pacifer and Crib death
    Do pacifers reduced crib deaths

Dr. Ann Kellams
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, University of Virginia

Dr. Ann Lenox Kellams, assistant professor of clinical pediatrics in the Division of General Pediatrics and medical director of the newborn nursery at the University of Virginia Children’s Hospital, is an expert in newborn care and breastfeeding. Kellams teaches pediatric clinical skills to students and residents and authored the Newborn Nursery Resident and Student Curriculum and Orientation Manual for UVA Children’s Hospital. Kellams serves her surrounding community by being a mentor for the African American Student Mentorship Program, by serving on the Virginia Breastfeeding Advisory Committee and by hosting various community education workshops on newborn and infant care. She received the Outstanding Graduate Designation from her alma mater, the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine.

Should I give my baby a pacifier?

In this video Dr. Ann Kellams discuss the many issues surrounding how to properly care for a newborn baby.

This expert: 71,003 views

This series: 14,082 views

Download to Mobile Device
Tags:

Baby

,

Infant

,

Newborn

,

Women

,

Health

,

Safety

,

Care

,

Pediatrics

Comments:

1 (Read Comments) (Add Comment)

Print

Transcripts

Host: Should I give my baby a pacifier?

Dr. Ann Kellams: Pacifiers can be used to help calm and soothe the baby and some babies really respond to that. If you are breastfeeding, we recommend not introducing the pacifier until the baby is two to three weeks old. So if they really like to suck and that's not time to eat then we recommend using your pinky finger, just kind of upturned, inserted in the baby's mouth and often, they will get very excited about sucking on that. After the baby is a couple of weeks old and breastfeeding is well established or anytime if you are bottle feeding then you can use a pacifier. We would try to limit that to the times that the baby is really sleeping and resting and not just all the time. Every time they are awake they expect to have it in their mouth, but pacifiers in that one month to six month category have actually been shown to be protective against sudden infant death syndrome. So in that one to six month period it's probably acceptable maybe even recommended. Beyond six to nine months you are getting more into habit unless that they need it. So we would recommend stopping at that point.

Other Videos