There are probably many reasons.....I would like to address one that I perceive as GLARINGLY TRAGIC.....
How many children have you seen with a pacifier stuck in their mouth while they are wide awake? How many are ATTEMPTING to communicate a need to a parent?
How many parents have you seen answer that attempt by placing/shoving/jamming a pacifier in the infant/baby/child's mouth? even after they are easily able to TALK and are fully capable of speaking the need?
What habit is being confirmed?
A child can no longer cry or talk with a pacifier in his/her mouth. Some will yank it out.....while others have grown accustomed to accepting it as a comfort when nothing else was offered to them.....over and over....and over. It is an INSIDEOUS habit being constantly reinforced in the brain's choices of AUTOMATIC responses (meant to keep the child SAFE and enable them to SURVIVE).That is the primary function of any brain.....user friendly..to keep SAFE and ensure SURVIVAL..
How many parents unwittingly allow this creation of the mental/emotional habit in their own child to "always, and in all ways, have some thing in the mouth ...and then unwittingly REINFORCE IT???
Children learn to feel the innocent pacifier in their mouth as the solution to being 1) hungry 2)upset 3) crying to the parent at an "inconvenient" time" in a store, in the middle of an ongoing conversation...etc. etc....????
How about the children in day care centers where the parent has left a pacifier there with full permission for it to be used to "quiet/pacify" the child? Are you getting the picture???
HUNDREDS.... I SEE IT VISIBLE DAILY...... in grocery store, department stores, on the sidewalk, ......
Now take it a few steps further in your imagination.....
1) the baby grows into the child, the pacifier is still stuck in the child's mouth ( who is now accustomed to it being used as a "pacifier" for all sorts of situations)
2) the child grows into an age where having a "pacifier visible" in it's mouth is no longer socially acceptable to the parent or the child so...........guess what?
3) one day THE CHILD REACHES FOR FOOD.... and makes a connective link of "AH HAH.....I HAVE SOMETHING IN MY MOUTH AGAIN!" Plus what is more significant.. IT ALSO TASTES GOOD Hurray!!!
The baby/child only knows the "craving" for the comforting sensation in the mouth is SATISFIED... why not CONTINUE to satisfy the craving this way ?
Thereafter....the child continues with the new found source to satisfy the craving for sensation in the mouth, no longer caring ...... if the craving is now psychologically linked with FOOD?
Now these same children, with habit reinforced, grow into older children, into teenagers, into young adults, etc. etc.
And we are so unconscious as to wonder WHY they now eat more and more and parents/pediatricians/societies don't even stop to consider what MIGHT be one source contributing to the problem of OBESITY...... PACIFIERS! >>>>>> USED BEYOND THE AGE OF REASON !!!
I would hope you send this to every adult daughter, son, niece, cousin, pediatrician/doctor you know......or not is OK with me, too...
