by Susan Yelavich
Ever since technology opened a window on the womb, we’ve seen babies in utero mouthing fingers and toes for the sheer pleasure of it. But after birth, when the umbilical cord is cut, it’s a different story. Sensual gratification takes on the urgency of survival, and incessant hunger pangs are soon compounded by teething pains. To mitigate the stress of transitioning from the womb, pacifiers were designed to simulate the maternal nipple and, as the name clearly states, to restore the peace.
The rubber baby bottle nipple, which begat the modern rubber pacifier, was invented by the American Elijah Pratt in 1845, a year after Charles Goodyear perfected vulcanization, which allowed rubber to hold its semirigid, malleable qualities across a range of temperatures. Laboratories were still trying to eradicate rubber’s unpleasant smell when Christian W. Meinecke registered the first “baby comforter” with the U.S. Patent Office in 1900. But it didn’t take the form we know today until the 1920s, when Bakelite and early plastics became readily available to make mouth guards for the rubber nipple. A New Jersey company called Binky (now a division of Playtex) eventually sold so many that its name became a synonym for pacifier.
But what about preindustrial infants? The default solution was, and is, thumb sucking. But not all infants are adept at consoling themselves with their digits, nor will fingers do much for itchy, sore gums. Folklore has it that the Romans allowed their babies to suck on beaded neck-
laces they could pull into their mouths. And the sight of babies gumming the handles of whatever they could grasp must have inspired the once ubiquitous gum stick. Attached to the end of a rattle, gum sticks (which date to the 17th century) were made of materials like ivory, coral, and stone.
But teethers are cold comfort when compared with the maternal breast, and the “sugar teat” was created to tide babies over between feeding intervals. In Russia and Europe, small pouches of cloth filled with sugar (or bread, poppy seeds, meat, even the sedative laudanum) were tied into balls to offer the illusion of a meal, and, when soaked in brandy, an analgesic for the gums. A Madonna and Child by Albrecht Dürer shows that such pouches were in use at least by 1506 when the painting was signed; we know they were common well into the late 19th century. By then the practice had spread across the globe: Afrikaners used a rag bag called a pop-pie or poppetjie that contained sponge cake tied in a piece of muslin, Swedes are known to have filled them with honey, while Finns and Lapps preferred fat. Sugary substances were most popular, however; mothers’ milk is sweet.
When the flexible pacifier finally came into its own in the 20th century, it was not without controversy. The earliest rubber nipples often contained dangerous additives, such as white lead, and they disintegrated with repeated sterilizations. Plus, social critics saw them as a sign of indifferent mothering. Not only were women
supposed to give babies their full attention, pacifiers could potentially pick up lethal germs when dropped. In spite of their critics, pacifiers remained popular. Eventually, both materials technology and attitudes toward mothering changed, relieving pacifiers of their potentially harmful effects and muting their social stigma. Maternal experience trumped expert opinion, though the experts continue to weigh in.
Today, there is near unanimity on two counts: Injection-molded pacifiers are far preferable to those assembled from separate nipples, mouth guards, and rings that can detach and cause choking. And silicone pacifiers are considered safer than latex rubber pacifiers, which still have chemical additives.
The case in favor of pacifiers has been further boosted by recent findings that they might prevent Sudden Infant Death Syndrome by inhibiting babies from sleeping on their stomachs. Designers have done their part to counter worries about a pacifier’s effect on incoming teeth by modeling them to the upper and lower curvatures of babies’ mouths and the activity of their tongues during nursing. But beyond health politics and design protocols, the pacifier persists because it supports the adage that children should be seen and not heard. Just look how it worked for Maggie Simpson.
Susan Yelavich is a visiting assistant professor at Parsons The New School for Design and a contributing editor at I. D.
References:
Archives