2023-04-27 10:11:34
The sucking reflex present during the first months of the infant is usually satisfied by a finger or a pacifier. However, the impact of the use of the latter on the health of infants, in particular concerning the appearance of food allergies, remains to be clarified. Early data indicated that the pacifier could play a protective role against the development of food allergies, but these results needed confirmation.
To complete them, three researchers from the University of Montpellier have retrospectively used the EDEN cohort, a mother-child cohort (N = 1,774 mother-child pairs) involving pregnant women recruited in Nancy and Poitiers and followed until their child’s first birthday.
Using the data from this cohort, the authors evaluated the use of the pacifier by the children. They also estimated the number of children suffering from food allergy at 1 year, defined as the presence of an allergic reaction symptom (swelling of the lips or face, gastrointestinal disorders, etc.) after ingestion of a certain type of food (fish, eggs, etc.), with a clinical diagnosis of allergy validated by a doctor.
A total of 1,774 mothers took part in the EDEN study and answered the questionnaire when their child was 1 year old. Responses were binary: yes (daily use) or no (never or infrequent). Pacifier use was reported in 58.8% of infants and an allergic reaction after food ingestion in 6.3% of children.
By calculating theodds ratio of the presence of a food allergy depending on the use of a pacifier, the researchers found a association significativethey indicate in a letter to the editor published mid-February in Pediatric Allergy and Immunology. Indeed, even taking into account potential confounding factors such as breastfeeding, the authors report a odds ratio strictly less than 1 for the association between pacifier use and the presence of food allergy at 1 year (OR = 0.295; 95% CI = [0,083 ; 0,924]).
These results are consistent with those of other research. One of the hypotheses to explain this association is that parents can clean their child’s pacifier by sucking it themselves, which would promote the transfer of their salivary microbiome to the child, thus conferring potential protection against the risk. to develop allergies. However, the data of the present study do not allow to assess the veracity of this hypothesis, which must be confirmed in a larger cohort including an analysis of the microbiome of children.
Finally, as a reminder, the French Society of Allergology recently published new recommendations on food diversification to reduce the risk of allergy.
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