Are pacifiers safe?

Plenty, Sarah Schmidt
Published October 10, 2008

Q. I’ve been hearing all the scary news about bisphenol-A in baby bottles, so I got rid of any I was unsure of and replaced them with BPA-free ones. But what about pacifiers? My six-month-old spends many more hours sucking on a pacifier than she does drinking from a bottle. –Helena, OH A. You’ve already addressed the greater concern with BPA by replacing your daughter’s bottles. Pacifiers are much less worrisome for two reasons. First, even if a pacifier does contain any BPA, it’s probably only going to be in the hard plastic “anchor” rather than the squishy end. Pacifier nipples are made of either silicon or latex, neither of which would contain any BPA (though many experts still say to avoid latex since it’s a potential allergen.) Second, the real risk of BPA exposure comes when it leeches into something that a child ingests—and that’s why bottles, cups, and liquid formula can-lining have generated more attention, says Anila Jacob, MD, senior scientist for the Environmental Working Group, a watchdog organization that has analyzed BPA research in detail... Click here to read this post.