"I often wondered about the combination of unfulfilled needs that led them
to be pacifier-sucking mothers at the age of 15 or 16."

OTOH, maybe pacifier-sucking *was* meeting a need, less dangerously than
other ways they could be meeting it. (Smoking comes to mind.)

One of my twins was a finger-sucker from birth, until she finally gave it up
because she really wanted to at age 12. It was hard for her to stop, and
took several attempts, and she still waxes ecstatic over the special taste
of her "sucking finger". I remember thinking how ironic it was when she was
old enough to wear nail polish but leave the sucking finger unpainted
because it tasted terrible. She also adopted a pillowcase as her special
"lovey" - originally any pillow case I had used but not washed would do, but
later she settled into one special one; she didn't think it was necessary to
give that up when she stopped sucking her finger, and to this day continues
to use it as a fashion accesory - headband, scarf, waist wrap. When I took
her to college this fall, she was of course nervous about meeting her
room-mate & all that; while the room-mate was unloading stuff from the car,
I whispered to Molly to ask her if she had her "case", and Molly gave me a
significant look, shushed me, looked around furtively, and pulled up her
pants leg and pointed to her ankle - there, wrapped around her lower leg
under her sock, was her case!

Cathy Bargar RN IBCLC Ithaca NY

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