I'm imagining the pacifier material somewhat spongy on a microscopic scale.

Soak the thing in a mineral and vitamin rich substance overnight, then when used, the pacifier delivers nutrients.

This used to be accomplished when kids sucked on rocks while playing in the dirt, but our rarefied mineral poor diet leads to many chronic ailments like Asthma and developmental issues.
-- subflower, Jan 08 2006

dirt modified infant food Dirt_20Fortified_20Infant_20Food
time for another bowl of breakfast dust [xenzag, Jan 09 2006]

Don't kids get minerals from food? I think that this would deliver the minerals in far too high a concentration, and I have a feeling that many of these things are not taken to the right places until eaten as food. Asthma, which you mentioned, is nothing to do with minerals or nutrients, but is (supposedly) on the increase due to cleaner environments, giving the body very little time to get used to dust and stuff in the air.
-- dbmag9, Jan 08 2006


I think this is a nice idea. Given the number of supplements available for children, I think this would be a very effective delivery system. With a bit of careful design, it could maybe even be modified to allow medicines to be delivered in controlled doses and over known periods of time.

According to New Scientist, exposure to animals decreases a child's chances of getting allergies, etc. Maybe the pacifier should be dipped in a cow occasionally.
-- moomintroll, Jan 08 2006


Got to be better than a candy pacifier.
-- wagster, Jan 08 2006


//Since when did kids suck on rocks while playing in the dirt?// Didn't you know that you can't tell how cool a rock is going to look until you get it wet? And the only source of wet readily available to a kid is his/her tongue? (Well, there is another source, but not readily re-usable, and if it did turn out to be a really cool rock, and you have to show someone else, it will have dried and you have to wet it again, you better have licked it the first time. If someone else licked it first, that's no problem, it can be sterilized on a shirt sleeve)

[db], I think you must have been born at age 26. In Kansas.

(p.s. - I don't have anything against Kansas. It's just that the deep alluvial soils don't have many rocks.)
-- lurch, Jan 08 2006


//hence vitamin tablets do not work as well as food with vitamins in// what?

<clicks heels>
-- po, Jan 08 2006


Why is this mfd? It seems to me it will work just fine. Maybe not perfect but more than good enough for the halfbakery.

The debate over the bioavailability of nutrients in vitamins vs food is the subject of much inconclusive debate. Inarguable, though, is that vitamin supplements are beneficial.
-- bristolz, Jan 08 2006


...and in some cases, detrimental. ;) Let's not go there (like I have any say). Nice idea, [subflower]. When my first was a newborn, she wasn't hooking up well with Mom. The Doc gave us some sugar water to be sure she was getting enough nourishment. Sugar water? How about something with some vitamins? Also, I thought it strange to give her a bottle of any sort when we were trying to get her to breastfeed. A nutrient soaked pacifier would have been a good option. +
-- Shz, Jan 09 2006


But I'm referring only to beneficial use of supplements. It's easy, easy, to find detrimental aspects of anything.
-- bristolz, Jan 09 2006


;) ;) ;)... :)
-- Shz, Jan 09 2006


[lurch], I was not born in Kansas, nor was I born at age 26 - as you very well know.

Sorry about putting some rubbish into my first comment. I don't know what I was thinking about, but it has been removed (leaving your comments looking silly).
-- dbmag9, Jan 09 2006



random, halfbakery