SALT LAKE CITY — Sucking on your baby’s pacifier to clean it may lessen your baby’s chances of developing allergies.
That advice comes from new research presented at the meeting of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, which occurred on Nov. 19 in Seattle, according to CNN.
What happened: Researchers talked to 128 mothers for a year and a half and asked how they cleaned their baby’s pacifier.
- Seventy-two percent of mothers said they washed them by hand, while 41 percent said they sterilized them and 12 percent said they spit-cleaned the pacifiers, USA Today reports.
- The scientists discovered the mothers who used the spit-cleaning method saw their pacifiers have less IgE, which is an antibody linked to allergic responses, according to USA Today.
- Higher IgE levels usually mean a higher risk of allergies and allergic asthma, according to the research.
- "We found that parental pacifier sucking was linked to suppressed IgE levels beginning around 10 months, and continued through 18 months," said Dr. Edward Zoratti, an allergist and study co-author. "Further research is needed, but we believe the effect may be due to the transfer of health-promoting microbes from the parent’s mouth."
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However: The study mentioned some children in the study had a higher risk of family history. For example, 18 percent of mothers had asthma and 8 percent had eczema.
- The research does not explicitly say that sucking your baby’s pacifiers will cure them of allergies.
- “This was not a cause-effect study,” said Abou-Jaoude. “We can’t say these children won’t develop allergies later on. We only have IgE levels until 18 months of age.”