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In a sudden denouncement of an age old infant favorite, researchers from the University of Wisconsin, Madison claim that heavy pacifier use may actually stunt the emotional development of baby boys by robbing them of the opportunity to try on facial expressions during infancy.

Published today by the journal Basic and Applied Social Psychology, the study reveals that The World Health Organization and American Academy of Pediatrics are already calling for parent to limit pacifier use to promote breast-feeding because of connections to ear infections or dental abnormalities.

Mimicry has already been proven as an essential learning tool for babies, however if the infant is busy sucking a pacifier, a baby cannot mirror the expressions seen and the emotions they represent.  Researchers liken the phenomenon to botox use and the users inability to make facial expressions that could effectively communicate thoughts or feelings.

"We can talk to infants, but at least initially they aren't going to understand what the words mean," says Paula Niedenthal, UW-Madison psychology professor and lead author of the study. "So the way we communicate with infants at first is by using the tone of our voice and our facial expressions."

Researchers studied groups of six- and seven-year-old boys who spent more time with pacifiers in their mouths as young children were less likely to mimic the emotional expressions of faces peering out from a video.

College-aged men who reported (by their own recollections or their parents') more pacifier use as kids scored lower than their peers on common tests of perspective-taking, a component of empathy.

Girls however were found to be emotionally competent, regardless of length of pacifier use.

According to Niedenthal, "girls develop earlier in many ways and it is possible that they make sufficient progress in emotional development before or despite pacifier use. It may be that boys are simply more vulnerable than girls, and disrupting their use of facial mimicry is just more detrimental for them."

Researchers note while these results are suggestive and require more research for verification parents should take it seriously. Although boy's are expected to be less emotionless than girls, because they are naturally not as emotionally sophisticated as the latter, they should be protected from emotional pomposity.

 "I'd just be aware of inhibiting any of the body's emotional representational systems," Niedenthal says. "Since a baby is not yet verbal - and so much is regulated by facial expression - at least you want parents to be aware of that using something like a pacifier limits their baby's ability to understand and explore emotions. And boys appear to suffer from that limitation."