No. 6, November-December 1995, pp. Babies need to suck. Sucking calms and quiets them. Mother's breast is not always available.
Pacifiers are a convenient substitute.
Pacifiers decrease the amount of time a baby spends at the breast, and this may affect the mother's milk supply. In many parts of the English-speaking world, pacifiers are called dummies. They stand in for mother's breast, like a dummy stands in for a human being in a department store window or in an automobile crash test. Babies are driven to suck. Without this drive they might not get the nourishment they need to grow and thrive.