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Can Your Newborn Have a Pacifier During Their Newborn Photoshoot?

I often get moms that are concerned about allowing their baby to have a pacifier during their newborn photo session in our Kansas City photography studio. I reached out to Summer J Friedmann, IBCLC for her professional advice on this topic. Summer has an amazing YouTube channel full of education videos, be sure to give her a follow. This blog post is written by her below. 

Soothing Baby During Your Newborn Photography Session with Dreamworks Photography in Kansas City

The pacifier. New breastfeeding moms hear that word and, in the background, I imagine them hearing a musical score depicting a terrible war scene with destruction and doom scattered everywhere. Am I wrong?! {wink}. I am Summer Friedmann and I am a Lactation Consultant based in Kansas City, providing care to families all around the world. I even have a binge-worthy YouTube channel with hundreds of bite-sized videos.

Mother wear white angel wings holding her newborn baby girl during newborn photography session with kansas city newborn photographer Dreamworks Photography

Okay, so back to...dun dun duuuuunnn...The Pacifier. What is the real deal? I’m going to tell ya! The pacifier is not the end of the world for breastfeeding and should not be
feared. Yes, you heard right. A La Leche League Leader and Lactation Consultant herself said so. WHY? The importance lies in how and when you use a pacifier. You hear many of us Lactation Professionals say to avoid a ‘paci’ for the first 4-6 weeks. In fact many health organizations have recommendations on avoidance of a pacifier for breastfeeding families. Let me explain the science behind this recommendation. In the early postpartum weeks the baby is hard wired to communicate how much milk the mom should make so the baby can get enough milk. The only way a baby can do this is by suckling at the breast. Every time the baby suckles at the breast and removes milk, the communication the breast gets is: replace the milk we just took out. A baby is designed to suck. It is vital to life. Babies want to suck on anything around; a finger, a sleeve, a bottle, a paci, a breast, a nose...you get the drift. The postpartum breast has a window of time where it is hungry to be told just how much milk to make. That window is about two to four weeks. In that time period, any suckling at the breast, or stimulation a pump or hand provides, will communicate to the breast to make more milk. Once we reach about 4 weeks postpartum, our milk supply window, so to speak, is closed. That means that whatever stimulation our breasts have received will be our total milk volume from that period onward. Milk supply volume remains stable from about one month to six months, and after six months, our supply naturally begins to decrease in volume. I speak more about this in my YouTube video “Establishing Your Milk Supply: Building Your House of Milk”. Why did I tell you all of that? That is the science to help you understand milk making and supply so you can know how and when the pacifier could help you or negatively impact breastfeeding.

newborn baby girl curled up awake with eyes open on soft white fabric during newborn photoshoot with kansas city newborn photographer Dreamworks Photography

So let’s imagine that during this vital early postpartum period, what I call House of Milk Phase, when the baby gives a feeding cue, someone places a pacifier in their mouth. *Feeding cues are signals the baby gives to tell you it is time to feed. Licking their lips, rooting, fingers in the mouth and sticking their tongue out are all feeding
cues. Sure the baby sucks on the paci, is happy and calms down. Remember sucking is vital to life for them. But what is really happening is the baby is trying to communicate to the breast that it needs milk, but instead now has the paci in their mouth. So technically the baby is trying to tell the paci to make milk. And by default, the breast is missing out on the signal to make milk. The baby is sucking away while not gaining calories, not digesting anything to help them poop or pee, which then can impact jaundice levels, increase weight loss and increase chances of a low milk supply for the mom. So when and how can you use a pacifier safely? It is easy. In the early postpartum period any feeding cue the baby shows you, offer the breast. Offer them the place they need to be to remove milk, gain calories, gain weight, poop, pee and stimulate the mother’s milk supply. When the breast is available, offer the breast! Use the pacifier judiciously.

Perfect times for using the pacifier are during a diaper change, when mom is in the shower, or using the toilet and needs a hot minute. Even while driving in the car or during a photo shoot! {wink} The point is, don’t use a pacifier to delay breastfeeding, control feeding frequencies, or to tell the baby when they do or don’t have access to the milk they need to thrive. When using a pacifier in this manner it will help protect breastfeeding.

mother wearing white angel wings while holding newborn baby girl during newborn photoshoot with newborn photographer Dreamworks Photography in kansas city

But WAIT. What about nipple confusion. Did you think I forgot that one? That is largely misunderstood as well. In the 17 years I’ve been in the field, I’ve only seen a handful of
babies with trouble moving between the tissue of a breast nipple and a bottle or pacifier nipple. More often than not, what many call nipple confusion is actually flow preference. Where there is flow a baby will go. What do I mean? The breast only flows with milk with an active draw from the baby’s suckling. The bottle doesn’t require as much active draw from a suckle.Try it yourself. You can tip a bottle teat downward and milk flows out without anyone sucking. This can mean the baby becomes passive while bottle-feeding then moves back to the breast and starts to fuss and fight because they've become used to the milk flowing without effort. One of the best ways to combat this is to pace bottle-feed. This is where you take gravity out of play when bottle-feeding, making the baby work to get milk out, similarly to the breast. This nearly eliminates the problem. We make the baby’s effort the same whether the baby is directly breastfeeding or bottle-feeding.

motherhood photo of mom wearing white angel wings while holding surrounded by her six children during newborn photoshoot with newborn photographer Dreamworks Photography in kansas city

So to sum it up on the paci. The pacifier was designed as a replacement for the breast. During the vital House of Milk phase, always offer the breast with any feeding cue. Don’t
use the pacifier as a way to be in charge of when the baby feeds or not. Allow the baby to communicate the signals to the breast to make the milk. If you need a hot second, the pacifier is not going to ruin everything. Avoiding the pacifier is more about protecting milk supply than anything else. Once you learn the science behind milk making, understanding the ‘Why’ behind the recommendations make a lot more sense.


*Babies in the NICU because of prematurity also benefit from using the pacifier as it assists them in
practicing the suckle and gain strength for when they can safely breastfeed.
*You can find more about Pacifiers on my YouTube channel along with many other topics.

Written by:

Summer J Friedmann, IBCLC

www.donenaturally.com

www.youtube.com/donenaturally

www.instagram.com/donenaturally

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