Unexpectedly: children's doctors advised parents to lick children's soothers
It was previously believed that an adult pacifier that fell on the ground or on the floor should not be licked by adults - only wash with boiled water and give to the baby again. Some mothers, however, automatically licked soothers, and, as it turned out, did the right thing.
This strange habit is nothing more than an instinct designed to protect a child and strengthen his health. This conclusion came pediatricians from Detroit, working on the program Henry Ford Health System.
According to them, the habit of licking a baby pacifier only at first glance seems unhygienic, in fact, it is impossible to find more useful activities for an infant. Such mother's actions help protect your child from asthma and allergies.
Experts came to this conclusion after a series of experiments. They determined the level of immunoglobulin E in the blood of children at birth, and therefore made similar tests in six months, a year and a year and a half.
IgE is a special protein that, as it accumulates in the blood, leads to the development of allergies and asthma. The higher his score, the higher the risk of negative immune reactions.
128 small participants experiments were divided into two groups.
In one mom sterilized fallen soothersand in the other - licked and offered to children again. The guys from the second group had the immunoglobulin E level at the age of six months was several orders of magnitude lower than that of their peers, who had their nipples washed and sterilized. In the year, the figures were even more different from each other.
Researchers attribute the result to the fact that bacteria is present in the parent salivawhich from an early age and enter the body of a child with nipples licked mom. Without a significant load on the immune system, they allow the protection of the child’s body to form more correctly.
But there are no final conclusions yet, more research is needed, scientists say. However, now the recommendations to lick the soothers sounded, and many parents exhaled with relief: what they considered to be their mistake turned into a benefit for the baby.
