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This is another of those regularly debated issues that can generate strong opinions!

The following article reviews current expert advice, as this subject is frequently raised in Byford childcare centre circles.

What is a dummy?

Very probably since time began, people (usually mothers or female care providers/Wetnurses) have placed babies on their breasts to calm the infant down, help it sleep or reduce things such as sore gums when teething etc. Breast attachment was never exclusively for feeding purposes.

That technique was supplemented by women’s fingers and other devices that the baby could suck on. The earliest such practices are now lost to history but a dummy is referred to in a 15th century book and a cloth version is visible in a painting at the start of the 16th century.

In more modern times, women have typically tended to differentiate between using their breasts to feed the baby and providing it with simple comfort. The latter need has increasingly been filled by artificial representations of their breast (the dummy) for calming and reassuring purposes. However, some women continue today to use their breasts, at times, as an alternative to the artificial dummy.

Why the dummy became an issue

In 19th-century Europe, the industrialised production of dummies began. The earlier manufactured dummies were made of a variety of materials, including versions of rubber containing surprisingly toxic chemicals.

Most people consider the modern dummy to have originated in the USA very early in the 20th century. By then, in the USA and some parts of Europe, the natural breastfeeding process began to be viewed as something inefficient that could be improved upon. The rise of the mass-produced dummy goes hand-in-hand with the increasingly encouraged use of baby formula milk.

By the third quarter of the 20th century, concerns were beginning to arise over both practices.

Dummies or more accurately, parents’ misuse of them, began to be flagged as a potential issue. Those concerns were:
the over-use in the sense of entirely substituting a dummy (and formula) for a mother’s breast. There was an instinctive hunch in some quarters that this wasn’t a sound idea due to being ‘unnatural’ although experimental

• evidence initially was lacking;
• the over-extended use of dummies for some years, well past the infant and toddler ages, might lead to other health and developmental problems. Again, this was initially unsupported by large-scale experimental evidence.

Today’s expert opinion

Much of the anti-dummy publicity of the later 20th century is now seen to be based on rumour and myth, however, there are important issues for parents to consider.

The typical official advice in Australia may vary slightly by state/territory and organisation but it can be summarised as:

• breastfed babies should not be given a dummy until their feeding is well-established, typically at around 4-6 weeks. That’s because too much of the baby’s sucking energy may be going into the dummy meaning less is available for
• the breast itself. That can in turn restrict the mother’s milk production due to reduced stimulation;
• bottle-fed babies may start using a dummy at an earlier age;
• although there is no upper-age recommendation, some organisations suggest children should be weaned off their dummies as their sucking instinct declines – typically in the 12-24 months age range;
• children who have used a dummy for several years up to around the age of 3-4 when their permanent teeth may start arriving, might find that dental problems arise through irregularities in their teeth. Most experts strongly recommend that dummies have been permanently removed before that stage;
• as there is some evidence that the overuse of dummies may inhibit the free development of speech fluency, most experts suggest that their use is restricted to nighttime only for children once out of the baby or early toddler ages.

There are two other points worth noting:

• there is a correlation between increased dummy use and middle ear infections for the children concerned. The mechanisms here are not understood;
• similarly, though working in the opposite direction, there is some evidence to suggest that children using a dummy overnight are less likely to experience SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome).

Please remember that our Byford Childcare Centre cannot offer qualified medical advice. To find out more about the above subjects, you should consult your doctor or a dentist.

Ultimately, parents know their children best and many of the dummy decisions will be based on their instincts.