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Parental sucking to clean pacifiers reduce allergy risk in child
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Parents who clean their child’s pacifier by sucking on it may be reducing the child’s risk allergy development, according to study published in Pediatrics.
“Exposure of the infant to parental saliva might accelerate development of a complex oral/pharyngeal microbiota that, similar to a complex gut microbiota, might beneficially affect tolerogenic handling of antigens by the oral/pharyngeal lymphoid tissues,” researchers wrote.
The cohort study included 184 infants who were examined for clinical allergy and sensitization to airborne and food allergens at aged 18 and 36 months. At aged 6 months pacifier cleaning practices and uses were recorded and at aged 4 months saliva samples were collected to characterize the oral microbiota.
Researchers found that participants whose parents “cleaned” their pacifiers by sucking it (n=65) were less likely to have asthma (OR=0.12; 95% CI, 0.01-0.99), eczema (OR=0.37; 95% CI, 0.15-0.91) and sensitization (OR=0.37; 95% CI, 0.10-1.27) at aged 18 months compared those whose parents do not use that cleaning method.
Researchers also found that vaginally delivered participants parents were more likely to use the sucking method to clean the pacifier than cesareandelivered participants (P=.02). Participants whose parents used the sucking cleaning method also less likely to develop eczema up to 36 months if the parents used the cleaning method during the first 6 months of life (P.04).
“Oral bacteria are swallowed and hence also affect the composition of the microbiota in the small intestine, which may in turn regulate tolerance development in the gut,” researchers wrote. “Further studies are now required to establish if parental pacifier sucking could be a simple and safe method to reduce allergy development in infants and young children, as our study suggests.”
Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.
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