I too have been hearing a lot of murmurs that nipple confusion has been overplayed.  Perhaps the truth is that some
babies are very flexible going from breast to bottle easily, some are inflexible, and most are somewhere in between....  The
difficulty then is not knowing where the baby is on that continuum, and that (in my experience) many mothers are not
sufficiently motivated to persist for the length of time some babies will take to get the idea.  Women often seem to feel that
it would be unkind to the baby to persist, or that they need to have a set way of feeding - often I find they have set goals
and deadlines for themselves, after which breastfeeding is abandoned.  very disheartening for helpers.  Is it part of the
expectation of failure?  Pam, did your mother expect to be able to breastfeed?  We so often hear mothers antenatally,
saying 'I'll give it a go, but I won't feel guilty if it doesn't work out'.  They say the same about 'natural' childbirth,  too.
(What's un-natural childbirth?)

Now nipple shields are a different kettle of fish IMHO.  We are still battling in Scotland to get staff not to hand them out at
the first opportunity.  Perhaps they are not a problem per se, but if they are used instead of fixing a problem then the
consequences must be bad - but that applies to any intervention that doesn't address the root cause of the 'problem'.
IMHO.

Mary Broadfoot, Scotland
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