The Japanese have research which discusses the fact that there are two
centers in the brain which control respiration.  They hypothesize that in
some infants, when the main respiratory control center is depressed, the
baby may switch over to the center which controls respiration during
FEEDING.  Therefore, if they can maintain non-nutritive sucking during
sleep,
they avoid apnea episodes.  What appears to be strongly habituated thumb,
digit and pacifier sucking behavior in those infants may be an attempt by
the baby to protect their respiratory status during sleep ie a survival
strategy.

 It may be that the withdrawal of pacifiers is a risk in this group of
infants, but would
not esp. matter to otherwise normal infants, who wouldn't be (I suspect) as
interested in sleeping with something in their mouths anyway.  It just goes
to show that
there are no absolutes and that often it is hard to tell what the hell is
going on.  It also suggests that there is usually a reason underlying all
behavior -- even if we can't figure it out because our prejudices get in the
way of critical observation.

Barbara Wilson-Clay, BSEd, IBCLC
Austin Lactation Associates, Austin, Texas
http://www.jump.net/~bwc/lactnews.html

             ***********************************************
The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html