A diatribe on dummies

Abstract

One either hates or likes soothers, dummies, or pacifiers. Their use is widespread and seems to have become semi-automatic, semi-epidemic, and semi-prescriptive. A pacifier is defined as a rubber object that a baby is given to suck so that the baby feels comforted and stays quiet. Their manufacture is covered by the British Standard Number BS5239. I do not like dummies. My objections are on aesthetic grounds: constant dummy use makes infants and toddlers look distant, dull, glazed, sometimes semi-hypnotised; on hygienic grounds: they are associated with mouth infections (I have often seen parents lift a dropped dummy from a dirty floor, lick it, and place it in the toddler's mouth); on orthodontic grounds: their use is a manifest cause of dental malocclusion, overbite, and loss of primary incisors; on freedom of …