There are going to be times when a baby (not every baby) will be fed
by something other than mom's breast. Some of the situations we may
agree with and some we will not, but reality is, it is going to
occur. Hopefully, we will reach a time when the normalcy of
breastfeeding is universally accepted and these situations will be
few and far between, but let's face it, we're not there yet.
Therefore, when a baby is going to be fed by some other means, we
want to select a means that is the least unlike the breast and/or
least likely to interfere with baby taking the breast again. Each
method, Haberman, cup, finger feeding, even bottle has different
plusses and minuses to their use. Breastbottle (BB) also has both.
I don't see the inventors as trying to replace breastfeeding. If
they were really trying to saturate the market, they would make
access easier - e.g. being able to use purchase orders, having
retail outlets, etc.
It's a new product (and I have no financial interest in the product,
just professional curiosity) which has some features that look like
it will be one of the "least unlike the breast". We have used it on
a few occasions and hope to try it in other situations instead of a
Haberman or traditional bottle. The first 6 that we ordered were
immediately snatched up by moms returning to work who were having
trouble getting baby to take a bottle in spite of trying all the
"tricks". They each reported that baby took the BB. In the last
couple weeks we have had 2 nursing student/new moms who planned to
resume their clinicals in as little as 1 week (oh dear!). We
usually recommend that if mom is going to introduce a bottle she
wait at least 3-4 weeks, but these babies will need to eat during
mom's absence. We offered both of them the BB as an option to try
and are awaiting feedback on how well baby combined the BB and
direct breastfeeding.
As to the problem of collapsing. Please reread the instructions.
Pressing the blue valve on the base should relieve the collapsing.
One mom reported this problem and on looking at the instructions
again, she found she had assembled it with the valve facing the
wrong direction. (One disadvantage, possible to misassemble.)
They come with the instruction to sterilize before first use, so we
will be sending them to our Materials Management (Central Service)
for sterilizing before using them in the unit. (It sure is
convenient that the Habermans come pre sterilized.) When mom's have
taken them for home use, we have carefully pointed out the
manufacturer's instructions regarding sterilizing before first use.
Perhaps, if this product gains acceptance and proves to work as well
as it appears in theory, the company might consider packaging them
pre-sterilized. One can only hope.
Kathy quoted the introductory page of their website. I would
suggest looking at the other pages which talk more about using it to
"help" with breastfeeding, not as a complete replacement for
breastfeeding which could be construed from that page alone. One
suggestion which we haven't tried yet, (I have a mom coming in
tomorrow that may try it) is for NICU graduates that are having
trouble transitioning to complete breastfeeding (from a "less than
baby friendly" NICU). I suspect it would help in this case - taking
the move from bottle to breast in a couple steps if baby is
resisting doing it in one step.
I will keep LN posted on what we find with future use - good or bad.
Winnie Mading, hospital-based IBCLC
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