by Heidi Green
December 19, 2009

Open up Time magazine’s latest “Inventors and Their Inventions” photo essay and alongside Art Fry (developer of Post-It notes), Joe Carolan (inventor of the Quick-Finders guidance system for rescue personnel), and six other inventors of unique products, there is a mom.

Mother and “physician by training” Monica Williams invented the Pacimal, a stuffed animal with a pacifier extending from the top of its head so that it is “easy for a child to hold.” Dr. Williams’ adorable product is a surprising choice for Time. Without a doubt, “Pacifier or not,” is among the top parenting debates, following such divisive issues as “breast or bottle,” “cloth or disposable,” “crib or co-sleeping,” and “work outside or stay at home.” Debate over pacifiers continues because studies and meta-analyses focusing on the topic do not give parents clear advice. The jury is still out on pacifiers, not to mention Williams’ stuffed animal configuration goes against strict American Academy of Pediatrics rules for babies sleeping with stuffed animals and toys.

The World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) generally object to pacifier use, while the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends their use—with some caveats. Several studies report that pacifiers reduce the risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), so AAP recommends that infants be put to bed with them, especially for infants less than 6 months old, “when the risk of SIDS is the highest.” The AAP does, however, recognize a 1.2-to-2-fold increase for the risk of ear infections due to pacifier use and a higher risk of gastrointestinal infections and oral colonization with Candida.

The basics for pacifier use are summed up with these simple AAP recommendations:

• Pacifiers should be used when placing the infant for sleep and not be reinserted once the infant falls asleep. If the infant refuses the pacifier, he/she should not be forced to take it.
• Pacifiers should not be coated in any sweet solution.
• Pacifiers should be cleaned often and replaced regularly.
• For breastfed infants, pacifiers should not be introduced until 1 month of age.

Within AAP’s recommendation that pacifiers be used during sleep is a warning that parents “keep soft objects… such as… stuffed animals… out of an infant’s sleeping environment.”

So where does that leave the pacimal—a combination soft object and pacifier?

What’s wrong with the Pacimal?
Dr. Williams sounds quite reasonable when she explains her inspiration for the product: “[My infant daughter] loved her pacifier but kept spitting it out. That’s natural, most children will thrust their tongue forward, which means the pacifier comes out. But they still want the pacifier and they don’t have the coordination to replace it. So I started by sewing the pacifier onto a bunch of stuffed animals.”

If the baby’s physiological urge is to thrust the tongue forward, spitting the pacifier out—do they really need it? Or have parents generally become accustomed to pacifiers as “hushers,” devices that save them from hearing (and having to respond to) their babies’ noises?

When they mount the pacifier to a stuffed animal, specifically so that babies can replace it themselves, what does that say about their desire for infant independence? Are parents truly unable to take the time to replace the pacifiers they have decided to place in their infants’ mouths? Is even this exchange between parent and child felt to be too tedious, too boring, too responsive? And what about the AAP safety issues, which tell us stuffed animals do not belong in an infant’s bed?

As for the claims (again, on Pacimals’ website) that the product “boosts motor skills … often at a much younger age,” well, I can’t see that. What is “much younger,” when grasping with a hand is generally accepted to occur between 1 and 4 months of age? Furthermore, babies who are given toys to play with will also develop motor skills. Frankly, why would we need (or even want) babies’ motor skills to be developed “much younger,” even if that were possible?

I admit it. I’m perplexed. With my babies, I followed the AAP’s recommendation for clear, stuffed-animal-free sleep space. What’s more, my children never used pacifiers. I did once offer a baby-shower-present pacifier during one particularly lengthy spell of crying, but it was promptly spit out.

Your mileage may vary. But me? I’d rather have inventor Tami Galt’s Fold-it and Go Wagon (also featured by Time) than Monica Williams’ hands-off-parenting Pacimals any day of the week. The safety of my baby is just too important to risk breaking well-researched scientific recommendations for the sake of unnecessarily increasing motor skills or plugging an infant’s natural noise-making.

Heidi Green has been researching and writing about women’s and children health since she moved to Pittsburgh more than 10 years ago. She is also a children’s book reviewer in her spare time. She is mom to Ben, Katie, Sam, and Max.