Researchers say pacifiers also lessen the risk to babies who sleep on their stomachs or in soft bedding. Both have been shown to increase the risk of SIDS up to 10-times, reports ScientificAmerican.com
"A baby who sleeps on his stomach without a pacifier has a 2.5 times greater risk of SIDS," explains De-Kun Li, a reproductive epidemiologist with Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, Calif., who led the research. "If you use a pacifier, that baby's risk disappears."
Researchers based their findings on interviews with 185 mothers of SIDS babies and 312 mothers of control infants collected between 1997 and 2000.
