Pacifier to combat SIDS

Hey folks,

I know that it is the AAP's recommendation to give your baby a pacifier for nighttime sleeping and naps to combat SIDS. Of course, SIDS is scary and if such a small thing helps, I would be happy to do it. My daughter is 6 weeks and has been breastfeeding at the breast for the last 3 weeks. Before that she was nursing with a nipple shield. I worry that introducing a pacifier might cause issues and I wonder what the general consensus here with La Leche is. Do you give your kiddo a pacifier, and if so, when? Does it effect their ability to self soothe? Can it affect their nursing and latch?

I am worried because it took us SO long to get to successful breastfeeding that I do not want to jeopardize it. Below is the shortest possible version of our journey
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When baby was born, she had a short tongue and recessed chin. She was not able to latch properly and lost 7% of her body weight in 24 hours so we were told to put her on formula. My milk came in on day 4 and we immediately started bottle feeding her this. She was getting what little colostrum I could get before that. On day 6 our peditrician's lactation consultant suggested trying a nipple shield to get her to the breast. It worked and I cried I was so happy to be able to breastfeed my baby. Her weight gain was still slow and, in retrospect, I think she was fighting with slow flow through the shield. When the doctor started talking about exclusively bottle feeding, I worked on weaning her off of the shield and directly onto the breast. It took several nerve-wracking days but we got there. It was a sore start, as her suck was still impaired from her anatomy. She started dramatically gaining weight and I knew we were finally on the right track. We have been straight at the breast for the last 3 weeks.

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I really appreciate your input here! She definitely wants to suck to soothe and is going after her fist and fingers.

I would not introduce a pacifier for at least another 1-3 weeks. And if you are worried about SIDS consider co-sleeping until you introduce one. (If you really feel you must) Because co-sleeping safely reduced the risk if sids considerably as does breastfeeding.

I forgot to mention that she definitely likes to suck to soothe and had been sucking on her fist, trying to master the whole thumb thing.

She was in a cosleeper in our bed, but our bed is not very big so we moved her to a crib next to the bed.

From what I have read and been told by my midwife and pediatrician, the risk for SIDS is already significantly reduced by Breast feeding, and also if the baby shares the room with the mother (this is also found on the "official" SIDS website). There they warn of cosleeping.

I suppose it is a personal choice whether you follow the pacifier argument. My personal opinion is ther eis too little known really on the cause of SIDS to say a paci is the cure. Ultimately no one can guarantee you anything.

My own experience with cosleeping was that I got so attuned to his breathing I woke if it changed but of course this is anecdotal and no advice either way. If you research into use of pacifier and how it affects the development of teeth and gum you can get another picture altogether. I followed the advise of friend who is a speech therapist who has published on this topic (use of pacifier affecting dental development, bone structure in the mouth cavitiy) and also on tongue tie, and her advice made me decide to limit paci use to emergencies and never at all in sleep. But it was a decision followong lots of reading and I remember deliberating for a long time.

also having a fan on baby when she sleeps has been shown to reduce SIDS. Might want to try that instead for a while. What has kept me SANE has been my Angel Care monitor. It is a monitor that detects movement, and if there is none for 15 seconds a LOUD alarm goes off. It detects breathing movemets when baby is sleeping. There is a sensor pad that goes under the crib mattress and its connected to a monitor. Might want to invest in one of those as well.

hang in there!!!

The recommendations really don't make sense from all standpoints. On the one hand, a nighttime pacifier can reduce the risk of SIDS, but overreliance on pacis at night can decrease the number of times baby breastfeeds- and breastfeeding has a protective effect, too! And while the AAP and some other medical organizations have come down VERY hard on bed-sharing because of the danger of the baby being smothered, bed-sharing has a protective effect against SIDS and it is possible to bed-share safely. How do you balance all those conflicting data points, and come up with the right thing to do? Especially when you consider that so many of the recommendations are not specifically tailored to breastfeeding moms and their babies, but to a much larger and more varied population, including those who formula-feed and schedule and keep their babies swaddled in a nursery rather than in the bedroom with mom/dad...

For me, personally, the answer was to bed-share and not use a paci. But that's me. :)

I think this is all really good advice. For what it's worth, we avoided the use of pacis early on, too, for the various reasons already mentioned here, but after a couple of months we did try to use one during a couple of "emergency" moments when we were in the car, for example. And my baby never did take one. And she also nursed with a nipple shield and was supplemented with formula/pumped milk during the first weeks of life and with no nipple confusion or difficulty going between breast and shield or bottle, so it's not like she had something against fake nipples.

Also wanted to say we used that angel care in my DDs co sleeper, and now in her toddler bed (yes, she is turning 4 and we still use it). She never slept in a crib, nor did she ever take a paci.

You have to do what feels best for you and your LO. There is a lot of advice out there, opinions, facts, research based statistics, etc...in the end only you know waht is best for your LO and family!

It's important to keep in mind that all of the suggestions for reducing the change of SIDS (INCLUDING breastfeeding) are based on correlations. Babies who use pacifiers are less likely to get SIDS as a group, but that doesn't guarantee that giving your baby a pacifier as an individual will reduce the risk of SIDS for you - since we don't yet know the cause(s) of SIDS, we don't know how (or even IF) pacifiers actually act in some way to reduce SIDS. It could be that moms who use pacifiers also tend to do something else that is what reduces the risk of SIDS for that group. I personally would not introduce a pacifier just to reduce the risk of SIDS. If you're not comfortable with cosleeping, and you're nervous about SIDS, you can get one of those fancy monitors PP suggested.

Well I don't think it's fair to say we don't know what causes SIDS. SIDS is what ALL infant death that they can find no reason for is classified as. It's a catch all phrase. But ultimately based on all the things that REDUCE it it's fair to say that much of it is caused by a child forgetting to breathe or stopping, sleep apnea and suffocation. Which unless the mother is using drugs or alcohol, she is in tuned to that. And much more likely to catchesit when in the same space.