Question: What is the effect of pacifiers?
Dr. Silvana Quattrocchi Montanaro, AMI trainer for birth to 3, gives her perspective on this topic.
Answer: Mums and dads should not offer pacifiers in the mistaken belief that it is providing comfort to the child.
Giving a pacifier really betrays our lack of knowledge as to who newborns really are. We fail to see their vital necessities and their profound expectations. Offering pacifiers also shows clearly that we are under the mis-apprehension that to suckle is the most gratifying experience for the young infant and that this perpetual movement of the mouth might be able to satisfy the hundred billion neurons (100,000,000,000) of their brains.
The use of pacifiers shows that we are not aware that the newborn’s ability and desire to suckle is part of the evolutionary programme for re-establishing, in a different but even more satisfying way, the preferential relationship of the internal pregnancy. Breastfeeding not only provides the best nutritional food but, due to the intimate way necessary for getting this milk, it provides also the possibility of a repeated daily experience of a “renewed and special attachment” keeping mother and newborn together for reciprocal physical and psychological welfare.
The strict relationship with the mother; the vision of her loving face; the hearing of her voice heartbeat and respiration—all are sensorial gratifications added to the necessity of food. The great emotional side of breastfeeding can never be underestimated. Newborns are waiting for this encounter in order to have all their necessities satisfied. They are waiting to receive not only the milk necessary to survival and physical growth but, as Erich Fromm puts it, they are waiting for “milk and honey.” Body and mind are in need of a mother who can offer the right food necessary for optimal human development. And, the first 6-8 weeks after birth, a time called “symbiotic life” or “external/psychic pregnancy”, have a special meaning. Its successful completion produces the “basic trustin the environment” which means that forever this human being will feel the world as a positive place.
The necessity of food that is especially prepared in the mother’s body is intertwined with the necessity of acceptance and love, so that the newborns can be protected not only from physical diseases but, through the experience of the great joy coming from such a strong human relationship, they can love the new environment and love the fellow human people in it.
Unaware of these great and well-programmed happenings, we dismiss the Wisdom of Nature and give newborns a pacifier, a pieceof rubber intended to act as a substitute for the human presence, for the tangible expression and incarnation of acceptance and love.
There are possible undesirable side effects. Prolonged use of a pacifier may very well cause problems with the proper development of the mouth and the alignment of teeth. It also can cause changes in the roof of the mouth.
On a different level, another negative consequence of the use of a pacifier is the development of language, one of the greatest achievements of our species. Keeping the mouth always occupied with the movement of suckling, we make it impossible for our children to manifest the first phases of language development. At birth children have a very limited possibility of voluntary movement—they can only suckle, swallow and cry. These voluntary actions make it possible for the newborns to perform the strong muscular effort necessary for bringing maternal milk from inside the breast into their mouth and then sending the milk down in order to digest it and for crying whenever they are in need of attention. This is really “a survival kit”.
Newborns cannot produce the sounds of human language yet because their larynx is still in a pre-human anatomical situation. This is due to the size of their brain, which is much bigger than the brain of our evolutionary ancestors, called “superior mammals.” It takes a couple of months after birth for the larynx to descend and reach theappropriate human position, and this is when newborns can start emitting the sounds of vowels like “a a a, o o o”. When this happens, children are very surprised but also very happy and, through continuous repetition, they become aware that these sounds come from their own voluntary work. They realize that they are able to send out, whenever they wish, the same sounds they were hearing since prenatal life. This is an incredible achievement, and it signifies that the process of humanisation is on the right way. The newborns are starting the acquisition of a special, unique way of communication—the spoken language. As we all know, this capacity is also a prerequisite for reaching the possibility of reflexive, abstract and imaginative thinking.
If there are no impediments, the second phase of this development happens at five months when children become able to put together the vowels with some consonants, the consonants that require the movement of the lips, like m, n, d, t, etc. So we have everywhere the words ma-ma, pa-pa, da-da. Are we aware that a pacifier impedes the first manifestations of such great achievements in the domain of spoken language? If we give the child a pacifier, we will prevent him from practising those early sounds and this could well delay language development. By the same token, when a child puts his thumb in his mouth he is also unable to practise the sounds he should be making.
If we give the child, for instance, a ball that is small enough for him to grasp in both hands, his interest in sucking his thumb will wane. The child must develop his hands and activities with the hand will help his mind to develop. And always, we should be constantly talking to the child, whereby we should not accommodate to the developing levels of language command, but use the language in all its adult grandeur and possibilities.
