Pacifiers. Most babies and parents can’t live without them. But a popular type could make your child sick and even prove fatal.

And now pediatric experts are warning parents.

The check up is a common routine at the LBJ Hospital’s pediatric clinic. Also routine? The unhappy discovery of pacifiers filled with honey or corn syrup to make them more pliant and more like a mother’s breast.  

Compare it to a standard pacifier, where the rubber nipple is empty.

“She goes to sleep, she got to have hit,” father Erasmo Garcia said.

They are common among Hispanic families. Little Nancy Garcia has one.

The problem is if they leak.

“Under 12 months, honey is not recommended at all — not even a drop honey,” said pediatrician Dr. Lisa Deybarrondo.

According to the CDC, 15 percent of all infant botulism cases are caused by honey. Corn syrup can also contain the spores that transmit the potentially fatal disease.

LBJ is working hard to educate parents.

“It’s very frequent, multiple times a week we are taking pacifiers away,” Dr. Deybarrondo said. “We throw them away in front of the mother and tell them they are bad.”

People say chupones, or pacifiers, are often brought up from Mexico by family and friends, but they are also very popular in Houston in Mexican-style businesses and shops.

So how popular are they? 11 News visited a store on the East End, and before we could buy one, 37 were already gone from the display.

Minutes after it was out of the package, honey was already oozing out.

“These could be potentially dangerous,” Dr. Deybarrondo said.

It’s a lesson the Garcia family is learning to help everyone rest easy.

Incidents of botulism are low. According to the Centers for Disease Control, an average of 110 cases is reported each year, but the majority of the cases are in infants.