However, breastfed babies can do their comfort sucking right at the breast, because the mother's milk flow slows to a trickle as the baby's sucking becomes less intense. Babies can continue sucking without stuffing themselves and without swallowing a lot of air. Bottles and artificial nipples don't have this infant-controlled regulatory system. The milk flows at a steady rate, and a baby with a full tummy who wants to suck for another ten minutes may end up overfed, with gas bubbles and spitting up soon to follow. Here's where a pacifier can fill an important need.
Pacifiers sometimes serve useful purposes in breastfed babies, too.
They can calm a baby whose mother is unable to nurse at the moment, because she's driving, paying for groceries, or caring for an older child. They may soothe a colicky baby whose mother's arms, breasts, and patience are severely overtaxed. They can comfort a baby who for one reason or another is too distracted or too frantic to nurse at the breast. Mothers of twins find pacifiers helpful when one baby just has to wait while mother takes care of the other. Hospitals use pacifiers for premature infants, to stimulate their sucking reflex and to help them associate sucking with the delivery of food, even while they are still being tube-fed.