I have read a few posts in the past weeks that recommend using wide neck bottles to assess a baby's capacity to suck at a breast. I am concerned that putting a bottle in a baby's mouth might be seen as a benign intervention. (Having seen babies who seem to have imprinted on a long hard plastic nipple and find it difficult to attach to mother's actual anatomy, I am not sure that it is.) Even if it is a benign intervention, I am also concerned because I doubt very much that what happens at a breast is in any way related to what a baby does at a bottle (with the possible exception of the application of negative pressure). And I worry that this practice might communicate to mothers that bottle-sucking is normal, accepted, easy, that the effectiveness of breastfeeding can be gauged by a comparison with (reliable, easy, quantifiable, normal) bottle-feeding. I would be really interested to hear more about this practice. How do you find it helpful? Does it reveal anything you can't observe at the breast? What makes you think that what it does reveal will be useful for solving a breastfeeding difficulty? Nina Berry BA/Bed(Hons) Dip Arts(Phil) Breastfeeding Counsellor PhD Candidate - "Ethical Issues in the marketing of 'Toddler Milks'" *********************************************** To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest) To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet All commands go to [log in to unmask] The LACTNET email list is powered by LISTSERV (R). There is only one LISTSERV. To learn more, visit: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html