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A recent study found that babies born in the United States might be more prone to allergies than babies born outside of the country. Although the researchers did not find any causal evidence as to why children living in the United States had a higher chance for allergies and asthma, a new study discovered that there might be a way to prevent children from developing these respiratory conditions. According to a Swedish study, parents can lower their children's risk of developing allergies, asthma, and other conditions, if they give their children pacifiers that have already been sucked on by their own mouth. The idea is that if parents exposed their children to microbes early on with the help of saliva drenched pacifiers, the babies' immune system could be trained.

"The immune system's purpose is to differentiate between harmless and harmful," a pediatric allergist from the Children's Hospital in Los Angeles, CA, Dr. Ron Ferdman, said. "If your immune system is not presented with enough microbes, it just defaults to doing harmful attacks against things that re not harmful, like food, cat dander or dust mites."

The research team recruited 206 pregnant women and added the women's 187 infants later on in the study. The researchers searched for families that had at least one allergic parent and asked some parents to clean children's pacifiers via their own saliva. The research team followed 187 babies until they turned 18 months old and 174 babies until 36 months old. The difference in time spans dealt with how different types of conditions, such as eczema, manifested in early childhood. By 18 months, the researchers recorded that roughly a one-fourth of the sample set developed eczema and about five percent had asthma. The rates were significantly lower for children who shared pacifiers with their parents. The researchers also reported that children who were delivered via Cesarean section and had their pacifiers cleaned with the boiling or rinsing method had the highest prevalence of eczema.

The researchers discovered that the introduction of solid foods did not change the study's overall findings, which were that children who sucked on their parents' saliva via the pacifier were less likely to develop these diseases. However, the researchers could not pinpoint what kinds of microbes contributed to their findings. The researchers explained that this method goes in hand with the general concept of exposing babes to germs early on in life.

"Babies need to be exposed to the world, and exposure to the normal microbial environment is protective," Ferdman stated. "Breast-feed for at least four to six weeks if you can. Don't smoke, and don't expose your children to secondhand smoke."

The study was published in Pediatrics.