Yes, the shape of the Haberman is not like a breast.  However,
"shape confusion" is only one aspect of nipple confusion.  Among the
many differences between breast and bottle (in terms of the
"mechanics" of feeding) is that at breast, the flow varies.  At
breast it may take a few sucks before the milk begins to flow-with a
bottle there is "instant gratification".  In my observation, with
some babies who have had a bottle, they give one suck at the breast
and then have this "Where is my milk?" look on their faces. In
addition, the rate of flow varies during nursing, whereas with a
bottle, for "x" amount of sucking, you always get "y" amount of milk
until the bottle is empty.  We have moms start a Haberman feed with
the shortest line facing baby's nose so the first few sucks don't
give the immediate reward.  Then after a few sucks, mom turns the
feeder between sucks so the baby has the medium line toward the
nose.  (We rarely use the long line=greatest volume of flow.)  From
time to time during a feeding, she again turns the feeder so the
short line faces the nose for a few sucks.  By varying the flow the
baby doesn't expect the breast to give constant flow either.  Again,
I have observed that another possible reaction of a baby at breast
who has had bottles is apparant frustration as soon as mom's flow
ebbs a bit.  The baby's action with the Haberman feeder also seems
to keep more of the "milking" action of the jaw and tongue than with
with the common bottle.
I believe that what we like to call nipple confusion is a
multifaceted problem.  I started making a list one time of all the
aspects of difference between removing milk from the breast and from
the common bottle.  (It's a project I hope to write up in detail
when I have the time.)  I had at least 8-10 just considering the
differences in "mechanics".  I think that where one baby may handle
the difference in feel in the mouth but have a problem coping with
the differences in flow rate, another baby has no problem with the
differences in flow, but seems to be confused by the differences in
how breast and bottle feel in the mouth.  Perhaps this is why so
many HCPs claim "there's no such thing as nipple confusion".  Rather
than it being a single easliy definable problem, it is multifaceted
and presents a little differently for each baby.
Certainly there are other alternate feeding methods with less
differences, but unfortunately not everyone is willing to try them.
While I might prefer to see a baby cup fed, I would certainly prefer
the Haberman to the common bottle.  We started at our hospital
trying to make it a common practice that if a nursing baby was going
to be fed other that at the breast, the Haberman was the choice (the
LCs still used other methods).  Now that the staff has learned to
accept that approach, they seem to be more willing to accept and
learn how to use approaches like cup or finger feeding.  Some found
it hard to make the transition from using a bottle to cup or finger
directly.  (Isn't it frustrating the games we have to play sometimes
to get people to accept or even try what we have learned is not only
an effective, but a preferred approach!)

             ***********************************************
The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html